It Ain't No Surprise - Leopold and his Fiction (Native Fiction Records, 2009)

Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man is without doubt one of the coolest, darkest films about the wild-west ever made. In the opening sequence, a meek accountant, played by Jonny Depp, finds himself stranded in the frontier town of Machine - a place not entirely dissimilar to hell on earth.
Machine is the complete antithesis of Mill Valley - the wild-west version of Marty McFly's hometown, depicted in Back To The Future III (possibly the weakest link in one of the greatest trilogies of all time). Even Bufford "Mad Dog" Tannen would not survive long in a town like Machine.
Which, in a round-about-way, brings us to Leopold and his Fiction - a very fine rock 'n roll band who hail from present-day San Francisco. Their sound is grounded in American roots music - blues, country, and healthy doses of garage rock. However, there is an edge to their music, a darkness at the edge of town that leads one to believe that they would be the perfect house band for the Machine Tavern - surely not a place for the faint of heart.
The band's debut album (featured here in 2008) revealed a band with a lot of promise, and Ain't No Suprise firmly delivers on that promise. In the louder moments (hear the excellent Sun's Only Promise), the band gives themself space to stretch out - crashing cymbals punctuating the howling guitar and organ leads. The quieter moments are more reflective, an acoustic slide-guitar accompanied by a plaintive, almost wistful voice, as on the gentle Tiger Lily.
Ain't No Surprise is one of the great new albums of 2009 and should serve to bring Leopold and his Fiction to a much wider audience. Here at In(High)Fidleity HQ, we are only to happy to do our part to help make that notion a reality.

Check Out: www.leopoldandhisfiction.com