Semicircle, The Go! Team's fifth album, starts with a matter or urgency. The Morse code beats on May Day strike similarities to The Four Tops' Motown staple Bernadette, before the Brighton band launch into their trademark schoolyard chants. On songs such as Hey! and Chico's Radical Decade, much like The Avalanches, a mood is set, like that tingling feeling of a new crush or the possibilities of a summer's day.
Their songs take on the surreal construct of a memory that's made up by different people's perspective of the same day. With the clash of indie guitars, 1980s hip-hop and even the ping pong sounds on Tangerine/Satsuma/Clementine, everything becomes a "Kodak moment". However, Semicircle fails to thrill all the way through. Bar the grabbing moments of May Day, Semicircle Days and She's Got Guns, the album rushes by, with adrenaline at the same levels when the album first began. Its abrupt end plays the same trick as the cruel warmth of September. Just when you think you're getting started, playtime is over and the fun we once had is a distant memory.
