Semicircle picks you up and keeps you dancing until the final feel-good track fades out; it’s a sassy, fresh, sophisticated record which proves The Go! Team are as inimitable and exciting as ever.
Semicircle’s many pleasures — of melody, of tone color, of ideals never losing the beat — deserve an essay’s worth of exposition (no, really).
Their maximalist, sunshine-infused, fluorescent-coloured pop hasn’t veered too far away from the formula established on their 2004 debut Thunder, Lightning, Strike and new album Semicircle continues their fine run of recent releases.
That the Go! Team can sound as fresh and inventive on Semicircle as they did when they started is an impressive, almost miraculous, feat that defies nature and defines triumphant joy.
At its core, Semicircle is a traditional Go! Team record. It’s full of the usual colourful textures that made them so refreshing, mixed with that hint of sadness that often underlies their sound. Hopefully people are open to letting this band back into their lives, because this is 40 minutes of blissful escapism.
While fitting clearly into their back catalogue with samples, glockenspiel and flutes aplenty, Semicircle seems more inspired by 60s soul music than their previous records.
Since they’ve never really been able to top 2004’s Thunder, Lightning, Strike, that means that everything on Semicircle is fun, but not much of it is super fun. It’s kind of like going a field trip; technically you’re not at school, but it’s still school.
Brighton six-piece The Go Team! imbue ‘Semicircle’ with the high-octane vibes of a marching band taking on block party jams, Northern Soul and cutesy indie pop. It might sound crazy, but it works beautifully.
After the patchy Rolling Blackouts and uninspiring The Scene Between, Semicircle manages to reconnect the group with the childish creativity that powers their best work.
Press play on ‘Semicircle’, and it’s clear the party is still going even after 14 years.
Despite its many retreads, Semicircle is still occasionally enjoyable, and that it manages to exist without a modicum of urgency or intellectual rigor is okay with me.
Listening to Semicircle can feel a bit like hanging out with that one friend, who always seems blissfully unaware and pathologically optimistic, and just tells you to have a positive mental attitude. To which it’s hard not to react with, “oh, fuck off, will you?”
The nostalgia lacks anything close to the authenticity that Thunder, Lightning, Strike achieved, and the sound of the 2018 version of The Go! Team struggles to get anywhere far from persistent annoyance.
ok i really dont know what changed for me between this and their first three releases but it didnt click. i think it was something about the vocals because the whole appeal of the go team imo is the shoegaze-y mixing on the group vocals. on semicircle the vocals were really clear and i felt super weird about it. i dont want to understand what youre saying goddammit!
besides that, its really the same thing theyve done before but not as good.
Gets off to a great start with highlight Mayday. Never hits that high again. Great fun in places though.
ok i really dont know what changed for me between this and their first three releases but it didnt click. i think it was something about the vocals because the whole appeal of the go team imo is the shoegaze-y mixing on the group vocals. on semicircle the vocals were really clear and i felt super weird about it. i dont want to understand what youre saying goddammit!
besides that, its really the same thing theyve done before but not as good.
1 | Mayday 3:57 | 87 |
2 | Chain Link Fence 3:41 | 84 |
3 | Semicircle Song 3:29 | |
4 | Hey! 2:54 | |
5 | The Answer’s No - Now What’s the Question? 4:27 | |
6 | Chico's Radical Decade 2:42 | |
7 | All the Way Live 3:34 | |
8 | If There's One Thing You Should Know 3:26 | |
9 | Tangerine / Satsuma / Clementine 1:23 | |
10 | She's Got Guns 3:30 | |
11 | Plans are Like a Dream U Organise 3:45 | |
12 | Getting Back Up 4:01 |
#97 | / | Rough Trade |