CREDIT: MELISSA NOVACASKA
Country pop/rock group Old Dominion are on a high from touring and releasing their sophomore album Happy Endings.

With the success of their 2015 debut studio album Meat and Candy, Old Dominion is back with their latest album titled Happy Endings.

The sophomore album, released on Aug. 25, features 12 new songs that capture the essence of the country pop/rock band, with lyrics and melodies that strike a chord with different emotions.

The first single off the album, “No Such Thing as a Broken Heart” has soared to number one on country radio charts, while other songs released just before the album came out have also done well and have been popular with audiences. The album has gone number one as well.

Such songs include “Shoe Shopping”, “Not Everything’s About You” “Written in the Sand” and “Be With Me”.

The two latter songs have become quite popular since their release right before the full alum came out.

“Written in the Sand” is about being in a disconnected and confusing relationship, with the band’s lead vocalist and guitarist Matthew Ramsey previously noting it’s one of his favourite songs from the album.

“Be With Me” is a powerful message for females, since it’s all about empowerment and encouraging women to be who they want to be and do whatever they set their heart and mind to.

The lyrics are catchy and upbeat and nice to hear from a band of five men, some of whom have daughters as well.

“You could be the president, you would get my vote. You could be the captain of whatever floats your boat. You could be the singer girl, you hit every note”, are the opening lyrics to the song, which has an anthem people could use in today’s world.

The video starts off with women and girls explaining what’s the “best thing about being a girl,” and some participates explained their love of being female.

The music video for the song features a number of girls and women of all ages, origins and demographics lip sync to the song, since they think they are audition to be in the video, but are in fact tricked by the band. Ramsey is also featured in the video at certain times and has the chance to surprise the ladies and let them know that they are actually in the music video.

This song in particular has gotten attention from other media outlets, with Ramsey even penning an article for the website Refinery29 titled “Matthew Ramsey Of Old Dominion On Why Men Should Write About “Girl Power.”” There he explains the concept of the song, how it came to be and how even though it’s not something people may expect from a band of five men to create, it’s something he hopes his daughters see one day and hopefully they’ll remember him as a female empowerment father who would say “Hey girl, it’s your world”.

The entire album is a mix of country, pop/rock bopping tunes some fast paced, others more ballad and slowed down.

“Stars in the City”, features the band Little Big Town on background vocals, and “New York at Night” even features guitarist Brad Tursi taking reigns of lead vocals this time around.

The three other band members, Trevor Rosen (on guitar and keyboard) Whit Sellers (drums), Geoff Sprung (bass) all offer their incredible talents and songwriting abilities to make Old Dominion a remarkable band.

Though they’ve only just released their sophomore album, the men of Old Dominion are no strangers to the music scene, having written songs for the likes of The Band Perry and Kenny Chesney, among others. They’ve also been touring for some time now, having been an opening act for Chesney for example, and had their own Meat and Candy tour that made its way to London this past April.

For Happy Endings, the band has been touring across the country promoting it for release week, and even did a number of dive bar style concerts in certain cities to get their new music out to fans.

All this hard and exhausting work is paying off, since they were recently nominated for two Country Music Association (CMA) Awards including New Artist of the Year and Vocal Group of the Year.

Overall, with the positive fan response to their music, the nominations, articles, touring and beyond, it looks like the men of Old Dominion will be getting their “happy ending( s)” after all.