After more than 10 years since their last studio album, The Cranberries, who have reunited a couple of years ago, are expected to release Roses in end of February 2012. I was never quite a big fan but it will be interesting to see if/how their sound changed since the ’90s.

Below you can hear Tomorrow – one of the first singles out from this album.

Do you remember Nada Surf, the US band who released the Popular single back in 1996? It was all over the radios back then. In the meantime, Nada Surf had some more albums and this year they reached their 7th. It’s called The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy and has been released two days ago in Europe and UK.

Below you can listen to one of the songs from this album, Waiting for Something. And you can also download it too :). Additionally, you can listen online to the entire album here (requires Spotify).

It’s not new, but I think I’ve never mentioned Tricky on this blog. Tricky is an English guy, producing a mix of Trip hop who, previously his solo career, worked together with Massive Attack. Although the music he makes is usually released under the name of Tricky, he works with various musicians on each album (instrumentalists, vocalists and so on).

His first album, Maxinquaye, was relesead in ’95 and received very positive reviews. One of the tracks I like most from this album is Black Steel. The song is actually a remake of Public Enemy’s single, keeping the same lyrics but with different instrumentals. The voice on this track belongs to Martina Topley-Bird, one of the constant colaborators on Tricky’s albums.

I’m not generally a fan of dubsteb, but I’ve heard this song some days ago and I liked it. Nero are a UK duo, they also had a concert in Romania (Bestfest). You can find out more about them here.

In the last couple of years I’ve found some really good jazz / blues singers and few of them come from France. I’ve always had a weekness for French “chansons” despite my lack of French language knowledge :).

One of the singers I really like is Zaz, who started her career about two years ago and became one of the most aknowledged new voices in France. Her style, “gypsy jazz” as she described it, falls somewhere between jazz and pop, usually having a good rhythm, with simple instrumentals and a most remarkable voice. It’s the kind of music you expect to hear in a French cafe, while sipping a latte :)

Probably one of her best known songs is Le Long De La Route, from her first album, released in 2010. You can buy the album on Amazon and below you can listen to Le Long de la Route. Looking forward to your views on Zaz!

I’ve recently learned that Adrian Despot is writing (again) on music, on the Mixtopia site. He is one of the most knowledgeable people on rock music, so his blog should make a good refference on this topic.

Looking through his posts, I came across Gotye – Somebody That I Used To Know. Gotye is a Belgian artist who has already released three albums. Somebody That I Used To Know is from his third album, called Making Mirrors. Enjoy!

UK’s Graffiti6 are expected to release their Colours album in one week. It can already preordered on Amazon at 9.99$.

Most people know Graffiti6 from their Stair into the Sun track. This was one of the first tracks they released and it was also featured on the soundtrack for a The Sun newspaper ad, in UK.

Since everybody knows Stare Into The Sun, let’s also hear Free, another track to be featured on Colours.

So, we upgraded the wordpress platform (thanks, Zooku) and we fixed the comments issue (thanks, Adi) so things are looking good for the comeback.

Let’s celebrate with a Romanian song made by two ex-Butterflyies in my stomach members – Yellow Project – As vrea sa te sarut.

Yellow Project – As vrea sa te sarut (cu Sorin Romanescu) by Yellow Project
 

It’s been 4 years since the last post on this blog… and now we’re back :)!

I’ve managed to restore a back-up from 2008 (which is about when the old musicblog.ro stopped) and thus retrieve a lot of the previous posts. However, a significant amount of content data (images and music files) are lost, so links to them won’t work anymore. However, if you want to browse to what has said before here, you can at least find the texts :)

Luckily, the design survived and Mihai Dragan did a great job – I still like it, after all these years! It will take some days to fix all the old bits and pieces (upgrade wordpress, for example), so sorry for any inconveniences that might occur.

Until we’re fully back on track, let’s listen to some new stuff!

Well it was opened last week, the Bucharest Hard Rock Cafe, being the 80th something in the world. It comes from the original concept, it has all the specific stuff, even the Rock Shop. So let’s see how it was like on 26.01, about one week after the big opening.

Access and Entry

The location is great, in the Herastrau park in Bucharest, a central area and close to the lake. A great location, in my opinion, easy to reach and which allows for good access, with parking and all.

From the entry, Hard Rock Cafe looks very friendly and a professional place. Everything is in order, everything is clean and you are welcomed with a smile – very nice.

Atmosphere and first impression

Right on the entry, you are being asked if you have a table reserved. Well, I did not have because I called the place before and they told me they do not accept reservations yet. Therefore, how am I supposed to have a table ? No, I don’t, and they mention it is full so if you want you can sit at the bar until a table is getting free. A nice thing is that you get a kind of device which will let you know when your table is free, so you don’t need to pay attention to everybody leaving. Good stuff.

The bar is place right in the middle of the HRC and it overs good view to the entire place, to the stage and to all the “stuff” hanging on the walls. You can see guitars, pictures of famous artists and such.

Hard Rock Cafe is half smoking / half non-smoking, which is a good thing – you will get the same atmosphere wherever you are sitting.

The bar offers a good range of cocktails, some classic ones and some which you can only find in HRC. They have a good range of drinks and they also have Clausthaler, which is a bonus from my point of view :) They do not have Leffe, which is a minus in Roxana’s view – but she will settle for the draft Guiness. :)

The restaurant

As our table was free (after about half of hour of waiting), we ordered some food. You have a nice variety to choose from, most of all being American specialties – chicken wings, pork chops, beef, hamburgers and salads. There is also a good range of starters and deserts.

After the ordering, comes the hard part – the waiting. This is one big MINUS they get, we had to wait for about one and a half hours. The waiters appologised, the manager appologised and they admitted they have a big staffing problem in the kitchen. Everybody was complaining about this aspect, some people next to us got their meal for free because of the long waiting time.

All in all it was not so bad, as you can watch the videos on the dozens of LCDs in the restaurant, but if you are hungry you might get very nervous. They promised to solve this is a couple of weeks, hopefully they will.

The food is very good – specially the beef (Grilled Fillet Steak) was delicious and the serving is quite ok (even though at one time they sort of forgot about or drinks) and everybody is friendly and smiling.

Overall

In the end, it was a very positive experience. The place looks great, the food is good and the drinks are also nice. The atmosphere is exactly a Hard Rock Cafe fan would expect. I am also looking forward for some live concerts in there and I will definetelly come back.

They need to put some more attention on the food timing and maybe they will have a reservations system as well.

More info about the Bucharest Hard Rock Cafe can be found here.