Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	67/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Consequence of Sound
Drowned in Sound	(6/10)
Entertainment Weekly	B
The Guardian
NME	(6/10)
Pitchfork Media	(5.3/10)
PopMatters
Rolling Stone
Slant Magazine

Magic Hour is the fourth studio album by the American group Scissor Sisters, released on May 25, 2012 by Polydor Records. The first single from the album was initially "Shady Love" but was later replaced by "Only the Horses", co-produced by recording artist and DJ Calvin Harris, which entered and peaked at number twelve on the UK Singles Chart.

Lead singer Jake Shears tweeted on October 31, 2011, that the album was almost finished. A song from the new album titled "Shady Love" debuted on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show on January 2, 2012 which features guest vocals from Azealia Banks and Jake Shears under his pseudonym Krystal Pepsy.

Shears said the new record is "a sweet joyful mélange of beat-driven future-pop. It style-hops all over the place unabashedly." For the record, the band worked with a diverse list of collaborators, including Calvin Harris, Pharrell Williams, Diplo, Alex Ridha and Azealia Banks.

The album was recorded over the previous year in both New York and London. On March 13, 2012, Scissor Sisters announced the title of their fourth album and announced that the album would be released on May 28, 2012, in the UK and May 29, 2012, in the US. The first single, "Only the Horses", was officially released on May 13, 2012.

Shears revealed in the bonus DVD that the song "The Secret Life of Letters" is the only song that was not newly written for the album. In some countries, "Fuck Yeah" is included as a bonus track together with two other remixes of the album tracks.

The Scissor Sisters are also credited with popularising the slang term Kiki, with its previous use limited to and created in the film Paris Is Burning.

Upon revealing the album's title and release date, the band also announced several concerts to promote the release. The band scheduled one show at the Bowery Ballroom in New York on May 6, 2012, and two concerts at London's O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire on May 16 and May 17, 2012, to coincide with the album release. The shows allowed the band to debut the new material in a live setting, a week before the record's official release. Fans were also given an exclusive pre-sale to get early tickets via the band's website. On May 23, two days before the album's release, Scissor Sisters released an infomercial-style commercial starring Queens Of The Stone Age's lead singer Joshua Homme on their YouTube channel ScissorSistersTV,

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Wikipedia