By the standards of conventional logic, fast music should beget fast movement from the listening crowd. Speed is certainly an integral factor in Liturgy’s music: guitarists Hunter Hunt-Hendrix and Bernard Gann possessed fingers that moved at a dizzying pace for the entire set and drummer Greg Fox had the most wild and intense drumming DC9 had seen since Brian Chippendale. But unlike Lightning Bolt’s overwhelming mosh pit, Liturgy’s devastating set led the audience to more of a blissful state of jaw-dropping catatonia.

They set the precedent early with “Pagan Dawn,” a standout from 2009’s Renihilation. After a few machine gun beats from Fox, Gann, Hunt-Hendrix and bassist Tyler Dusenbury immediately engaged in a similar aural assault. Yet, the onslaught of noise was constant and therefore the repetitiveness had a blissfully hypnotic effect. Even Hunt-Hendrix’s high pitched shouting was drenched in so much reverb that the roar blended in with the rest of the song. As such, the rare tempo changes and breaks in sound such as the staccato beats at the end of Aesthethica opener “High Gold,” were all the more intense.

The one time a pit actually broke out was during second to last song, “Veins of God”, during which they dropped from their wild bell-like guitars into a darker and slower vein. Of course, slower for Liturgy still means that they’re operating at the speed of bands like Corrosion of Conformity — so the short-lived pit seemed only right. For most of the show, though, the crowd was content to bang their heads in a state of affixed awe. The crowd would occasionally look at each other and knowingly nod their heads as if they’d already come to the same conclusion: “Exactly. This does rule.”