Respublika - Ukrainians (The)

Advantages: It's not awful
Disadvantages: Fairly poor

...Ukraine has some awesome bands whether it be the reggae punk folk act Haydamaky or acoustic guitar acts such as Kontrabas. When you throw funky rock bands like VV thrown into the mix then you would imagine it wouldn?t be hard to come up with a decent folk rock band. Whilst there?s nothing technically bad about the band ?The Ukrainians?. The band is made up of English born Ukrainian descendents and songs on this album are in Ukrainian. The folky style is too depressive and the punk not energetic enough, leaving the sound of the band a little lacklustre. The arrangement of the melodies seems very contrived. Nothing jumps out and amazes and one song runs into another one. I?d been aware of The Ukrainians for ages but had never got round to giving them a listen, I finally decided to give their debut album a go and can say that I wasn... Read review

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Advantages: Easy to read, funny, captivating
Disadvantages: Too much in one story, some comedic devices stretched a bit far

...Nadia and Vera are middle-aged Ukrainian sisters living in Britain and everything - form personality to politics - seems to divide them. But now they have to join ranks as their elderly widowed father Nikolay falls prey to Valentine, a silicone-breasted, bottle-blonded gold digger back from the home country who arrives in the UK with her teenage son and a belief that an old age pension of an engineer will be able to support her taste for brown cookers and posh cars. Many farcical events ensue and some poignantly moving ones too in a swiftly moving and often funny story. But overall, 'Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' is less wacky then the blurb on the cover would let you believe and it is, essentially, a simple family tale. The conflict between two sisters (very overt) and their difficult relationship with their slightly... Read review

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Advantages: easy reading
Disadvantages: maybe too simplistic

..."Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blond Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface sludge of sloughed-off memories; giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside." Nikolai has lost his wife after decades of faithful looking after and sticking to the rules. An eccentric old man, he decides to take a new one. A thirty-six year old from his home land of the Ukraine. After years of estrangement, this decision brings his two daughters back into contact with each other, and kick starts the warmly funny tale of 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian'. Nadezhda (Nadia) and Vera have been raised in England by their war time refugee parents. They are as different as it... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful