Gatekeeping is a touchy — and chronically over-debated — subject these days, in music as well as other places. Some think musical gatekeeping has its place, some think it’s invariably bad, but let’s face it: there are always going to be proponents. Maybe you want an indie band to stay indie — in sound as well as reach. Or maybe it’s a geographical thing — this artist is a homegrown gem of your city, and that’s where they need to stay, because wider exposure will corrupt them and polish the authenticity right off of them, and goddammit, they’re ours, not yours.

Which brings us to Die Spitz and their packed free show last Saturday night at Central Machine Works, and how it left little doubt that this musically fearsome female quartet has already breached whatever guitar- or bat-shaped city gates an overzealous, self-protective fan might want to see fencing them in.

Maybe that seemed obvious already if you’ve followed the career trajectory of Ava Schrobilgen, Ellie Livingston, Kate Halter and Chloe de St. Aubin in the past two-plus years or so. After captivating Austin’s heavy rock devotees in that time frame, Die Spitz have caught the ears of some extremely famous rockers while riding and refining their considerable strengths — fang-baring political and social observations and perspectives, musical versatility and an unusual accessibility for such a noisy hybrid of punk and doomy, window-rattling metal. They’re signed to Third Man Records — Jack White’s label, as if that needs to be spelled out for anyone reading this — and released their first full-length, Something to Consume, on Third Man in September. They’ve even pierced a few charts already over in the UK, where Something to Consume cracked the top 25 of the Rock & Metal Albums chart. And next June, they’ll open a show for Foo Fighters in Liverpool.

But if all those data points pointed to Austin’s latest fast-rising rock non-secret already escaping into the hands of national and international audiences, the KUTX-presented Central Machine Works show might have been a final reinforcement of that fact. For more than an hour on the Saturday night after Thanksgiving, Die Spitz built and rode a chaotic wave of snarling, swaggering and cathartic rock energy, displaying the tightness and swagger of a quartet that’s fit to do things like, well, share a bill with the Foos.

Collectively, they appear to be having a hell of a great time, too — and unlike so many rock outfits that become defined by a dominant frontperson, they truly present as a collective: three members who take turns on lead vocals, and all four displaying varying levels of performative flair.

Livingston is the diminutive, spirited ginger crowd-inciter. She’s the one who surfs, introduces songs by shouting, “This is ‘American Porn,’ bitches!” and peer-pressures the crowd with playful chants of “Open it up!” until they create a circle pit to mosh into at her cue. She and fellow guitarist Schrobilgen (top photo) usually handle lead vocal duties, and in doing so, they often thread a difficult needle: making abrasive punk-metal shouting somehow anthemic for listeners who normally can’t stand that sort of thing. Schrobilgen’s brutally hoarse bellowing of, “Shut your mouth, show your face!/American poorrnnn!” was the peak of that song’s rousing, crushing indictment of female objectification (and its insidiousness). The likes of thrashy and pummeling set closer “Throw Yourself to the Sword” (prefaced by a crowd-knighting bit proudly involving the band’s real sword) were Livingston’s time to cook … by which I really mean burn, because her caustic roar torches everything in her path.

Halter (bass) and de St. Aubin (usually drums) provided rock-solid, often brutal rhythm, highlighted by the latter’s forceful, sometimes primitive smacks of her snare. And when de St. Aubin traded instruments with Schrobilgen and took lead vocals, songs like the superb “Punishers” take on a more traditional, melodic hard-indie rock flavor; you could even imagine that side of Die Spitz finding its way onto peak MTV sometime in the ’90s (at least some play on “120 Minutes”).

All of which is to say that once they signed off on Saturday night, Die Spitz left no doubt that they’re ready for wider reach, a bigger stage and the pursuit of whatever modern rock stardom may be available to them. They have the musical chops, songs, charisma and galvanizing aggressiveness to soundtrack exhilarating holiday-weekend shows well outside Austin, and are on as promising a path as possible to do it. So don’t bother trying to gatekeep — you’ll be wasting your time.