Liquorice, fronted by Jenny Toomey (Tsunami) and Dan Littleton (Hated, Ida), borrowed heavily from the resources of fellow 4AD artists His Name Is Alive to record Listening Cap. Jenny and Dan got HNIA drummer Trey Many to do percussion, HNIA guitarist and producer Warren Defever to produce the album, and used Warren's basement as a studio in which to record the new album. However, for all the (much needed) help they got in finishing Listening Cap, none of it seems to detract from the overall boring, tedious nature of the album.
Only four of the ten tracks on the album are worth a listen, two of which are covers. Liquorice's cover of Franklin Bruno's "Keeping the Weekend Free" is a rare jewel, and also the song where Toomey's vocals shine brightest (there is something infinitely heartbreaking in the way she sings "keeping myself locked up/lettin' the weekend go/waitin' for my parole"). The other cover is of the Roche's "Jill Of All Trades"--a pleasant piano tune conveying hardship and woe. "Breaking the Ice" is the best Liquorice original, featuring Littleton on lead vocals. "Blew It", with its cute synth buzz and unpretentiousness, succeeds in being an upbeat, fun song as much as the other original tracks fail at being witty or meaningful.
The rest of the album comes up short in the vocal department (Toomey too often sounds like a sour, whiny Edie Brickell), in lyrics that either resemble 14-year-old overkill poetry ("yeah your talk is so terribly tired that it's verbal chloroform/in this casual police state in this public forum/where the meat of our desire is the milquetoast of decorum") or drag along and wander around slowly ("my trouble with you/yeah honey I got a trouble with you/and it isn't what you are it's what you do"), and in music that is simply annoying. It's no wonder Liquorice was previously known as Slack.
