Star Trails is a 2004 album by Canadian band Spirit of the West. It was their first album of new material since Weights and Measures in 1997, and their first for independent label MapleMusic Recordings.
The album cover is a photograph taken at Mount Kilimanjaro. The photo is a 'star trail' photograph, where the exposure of the camera is left for a minimum of 15 minutes.
"July" was the album's first single, and the band's first significant radio hit since "Tell Me What I Think" (from the 1995 album Two Headed).
"Come Back Oscar" is a tribute to Calgary musician Oscar Lopez, a friend of the band's who had been absent from the folk festival circuit for several years due to a battle with depression. In what several music critics described as one of 2004's most thrilling moments in Canadian music, Lopez joined the band at the Calgary and Edmonton folk festivals in July to perform the song. According to one writer for the Calgary Sun, "if there was a dry eye in the house, it was glass."
"King of Scotland", the album's second single, is about Idi Amin, who once proclaimed himself king of Scotland after becoming infatuated with the country on a state visit to Great Britain.
"Enough, Already Alright (Hello Cleveland)" takes the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to task for being nothing more than "a glorified Hard Rock Cafe," with none of the grit and excitement that is usually associated with rock and roll music.
Read more about Star Trails: Track Listing
Famous quotes containing the words star and/or trails:
“The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition. In America, this system is carried to the point where a man who can knock a small white ball into a series of holes in the ground with more efficiency than anyone else thereby gains social access to the President of the United States.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)
“Life ... is not simply a series of exciting new ventures. The future is not always a whole new ball game. There tends to be unfinished business. One trails all sorts of things around with one, things that simply won’t be got rid of.”
—Anita Brookner (b. 1928)