Simplicity reigns with this brutalizing three piece from Los Angeles. With only a guitar, drum kit and vocals to play with, 400 Blows rouses a reverse Godheadsilo approach to music, summarily ignoring conventional musical wisdom in favor of a searing display of metalesque marching anthems laced with ferocious feedback and stinging vocals that lambaste the inner skull with repeated blows. Presumably named after Truffaut's classic French "new wave" film that analyzes oppression, escapism and portrays societal dissatisfaction, the band adequately applies these motifs to its music. The band may snicker at parallel critical commentaries, but 400 Blows certainly provide an altered medium that can either be repressive or refreshing, depending on your musical tastes. "Everything is Easy Now" enlists a reverberating guitar track that eventually escalates into a chord for chord attack with razor sharp precision. On "The Bull That Killed the Matador", Skot's hazy, transcendental vocals, gritty sneers and spirited lyrical shouts resemble those of a drunken madman dispensing terror via the microphone. Guitarist Christian avoids any noodling guitar notes as he powers through a distorted rhythmic mayhem reminiscent of your favourite Earache Records riffs -- wholesome, yet brimming with tension. Guitar wallopping doesn't get much more overt than on these eight fiendish commentaries -- and they get fiendish packaging to boot!