Leopold and His Fiction

Ain't No Surprise

(Native Fiction)

Record Review by Alex Pudlin

To my knowledge, there’s no one in San Francisco’s Leopold and his Fiction named Leopold. There’s a Dave and a Micayla and Jon. But no Leopold. It takes a certain amount of balls to have a band named after a person who’s not in the band. It means the lead singer doesn’t mind being called by a different name. Remember how everyone used to call Darius Rucker “Hootie?” Maybe I’m missing something. But from where I sit, Leopold’s head-honcho Daniel James must be pretty self-confident. Or else, should Leopold become mega-stars, he’ll have a nervous breakdown from all the people calling him Leopold.

If the muscular sound on Ain’t No Surprise, Leopold’s first full length album, is any indicator, though, James’ quality songwriting and musicianship will squash any mistaken identity concerns. Ain’t No Surprise expertly vacillates between garage-rock, not so freakish freak-folk, and Americana without ever feeling scattered or haphazardly executed. It helps that James’ croon is well suited for all these genres. But just as important here is the pacing of the album, and the consistent Western isolation that frames all the songs. James and his tight rhythm section never repeat the same mood twice, but they don’t abruptly pull U-turns either.  The song placement ensures a sensible spread of peaks and valleys that makes the album realized as a whole.

Ain’t No Surprise’s standouts come from all areas of Leopold’s sound. “Broke” is a Nuggets-era throwback, complete with a familiar but still blistering organ part, and the Outlaw Country-tinged howl of James; “Tiger Lily” is a sleepy folk number; and “Pretty Neat” is a lush meditation embellished with volume-pedal slide guitar and glockenspiels.  Leopold’s knowledge of the tricks in their repertoire allows the album to maintain excitement throughout, while also varying up the songs’ mood enough to keep Ain’t No Surprise constantly intriguing.

Ain’t No Surprise relies on other genres for its sustenance, which makes it a bit of an easy target for derision. And to be fair, there are a few sore thumbs in this basket of hands. The title track has a verse that sounds so much like Dylan’s “Tombstone Blues” that it’s initially distracting, and “Sun’s Only Promise” suffers from its intentionally poor sound mixing. But by the time country-blues ditty “Katie Mae” comes on the speakers, these small missteps are but light paw marks. One listen to the guitar ambience of “Adanella.” will lull you to serenity faster than an afternoon rainshower. And by that time, you won’t even care that there’s no Leopold in the band. You’ll be too busy starting the album over again.