The first thing you notice is the drums. They’re holy-crap loud, with a kick drum so thunderous that it doesn’t just hit you in the gut, it feels like something is trying to pound its way out of your chest, Alien-style. During Das Llamas’ soundcheck and show, Thomas Burke’s commanding rhythms snapped the audience to attention. While the crowd didn’t dance as much as it should’ve, the band put on a powerful show, injecting the songs from their debut album World War — plus a few others - with tons of of volume and energy. Kerry Zettel’s vocals had so much reverb on them, he sounded like he was singing from inside a wormhole, and the way he juggled singing, bass and keyboard duties made him a one-man show in his own right.

Das Llamas tore into cryptic anti-anthems like “Whoa Oh Oh” and “Wood on Bone,” which drew a cheer of recognition from the crowd. “I Got Stoned”’s surreal, paranoid collision of rockabilly, dub and punk also ignited live, sounding bouncy and dangerous at the same time. The band’s less frantic songs, such as “The Others” — which sounds a bit like something Interpol would write, if they went crazy — kept the intensity of the show’s wilder moments, which ranged from the moody-then-frenetic “Wedding Song” (which Zettel introduced as a “rap song,” perhaps inspired by Monday night’s headliners, the Wu-Tang Clan) to the epic finale, which involved an extra keyboardist and percussionist, a saxophonist, and masks and maracas that were handed out to the audience. It was a raucous and poised show, and when Zettel said “You guys were awesome! That was totally cool” at the end, the crowd was thinking the same thing.