Ladytron – Сиқыр Сағаты

2005 studio album by Ladytron

Witching Hour is the third studio album by English electronic music band Ladytron, released on 3 October 2005 through Island Records internationally and Rykodisc in the United States. The album was promoted by four singles: "Sugar", "Destroy Everything You Touch", "Weekend" and "Soft Power". Witching Hour received mostly positive reviews and reached number 81 on the UK Albums Chart. The album ranked at number 23 on Pitchforks "Top 50 Albums of 2005", and at number 48 on NMEs "Albums and Tracks of the Year 2005". In 2015, it was included on NMEs list "50 Still Awesome Albums That Made 2005 a Dynamite Year for Music". As of February 2008, the album had sold 50,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Ladytron began working on demos for Witching Hour immediately after concluding Light & Magic tour with a homecoming gig in Liverpool in September 2003, where they were supported by Franz Ferdinand. Within a few months, they had mapped out the entire record.

Musically, Witching Hour has been described as synth pop, electronic rock, post punk, and shoegaze. In a 2005 interview for XLR8R, Daniel Hunt shared some information about the equipment used on Witching Hour: "most of the bassy riffs are a Roland SH 2 or a Korg MS 20. Reuben especially likes sticking his Korg MS 10 through Electro Harmonix boxes and fattening them up. For the poly stuff, we used Farfisa organs and Solina string machines–basically the same stuff we've used all along, but we probably treated it a bit rougher. We also used a load of the producer's toys as well–Reuben's got an ARP 2600, which you can sit around with for a full day trying to get something useful out of and fail, and the next day you switch it on and it'll automatically make something genius. I've got this really shit, five pound, sub Casio keyboard that I got off this trader; the chords for 'International Dateline' were written on that. It's good to have that kind of gear. The shit toys can end up being quite inspirational". The silence track at the end of the album makes the album nearly one hour long, as a nod to the album's title. Some editions of the album also did not include the instrumental "CMYK". Additionally, Island released a limited edition containing a bonus DVD with the music videos of "Seventeen", "Sugar", "Destroy Everything You Touch", and the documentary Once Upon a Time in the East: Ladytron in China, detailing highlights of their 2004 tour across China. Major Records released on 5 April 2007 in Europe a special edition of the album, including a bonus disc with remixes and B sides. So Sweet Records did the same on 5 November 2007 in the United Kingdom and the United States, with a different bonus disc. The album was re released by Nettwerk on 18 January 2011 in the United States and on 24 January 2011 in the United Kingdom. This edition included four additional remixes.

Four singles were released from Witching Hour: "Sugar" on 20 June 2005, "Destroy Everything You Touch" on 19 September 2005, "Weekend" in 2005, and "Soft Power" in 2007. "International Dateline" was issued as a promotional single in 2005. "Destroy Everything You Touch" reached number 42 on the UK Singles Chart, the highest position a Ladytron single has reached to date. It also became the band's best known song. The album was also promoted by two music videos: "Sugar" (directed by Andy Roberts) and "Destroy Everything You Touch" (directed by Adam Bartley). The unfinished video for "International Dateline" was rediscovered and finished by Daniel Hunt in 2012, and premiered on 22 February 2013. According to Daniel Hunt, the band wanted to make a video for "Soft Power", but the plans were abandoned.

Witching Hour received positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 78, based on 21 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Mark Pytlik of Pitchfork described the album as "the most urgent and immediate of their career" and also as a "quantum leap record".

Region Date Edition Label Ref. (Reference) United Kingdom 3 October 2005 Standard Island Germany 4 October 2005 Universal Music United States Rykodisc Germany 5 April 2007 Special Major United Kingdom 5 November 2007 So Sweet Germany 1 September 2009 Witching Hour (Remixed & Rare) Redbird Records, Redbird, Cobraside United Kingdom United States 18 January 2011 Reissue Nettwerk United Kingdom 24 January 2011