Old Dominion – Meat and Candy – Album Review by Hannah Compton
Old Dominion are a relatively new five piece male band to the Country Music scene who recently released their debut album ‘Meat and Candy’. Although only releasing their first album, they had previously released a successful EP and members in the past had written or co written songs very well known to the country community for artists such as; Chris Young’s “Neon”, The Band Perry’s “Better Dig Two” and “Chainsaw”, Dierks Bentley’s “Say You Do” Tyler Farr’s “A Guy Walks Into a Bar”, as well as songs for Kenny Chesney, the Randy Rogers Band, and for ABC’s Nashville.
Despite gaining a huge fan base and musical respect from some of Country’s finest musicians, it took a while for Old Dominion to be offered a record deal even with the strength of their EP landing them a spot on Kenny Chesney’s ‘Big Revival’ tour. But after a few unsuccessful showcases it all changed with releasing the single “Break Up With Him,” the one song on ‘Meat and Candy’ that was written by all five members. The Highway began playing the song then a few other stations followed suit and playing a song of an unsigned band was something that rarely happened if at all. Eventually they were signed by RCA Nashville and signed their deal in Nashville Airports baggage claim. I guess they must have been in a hurry and had only a certain amount of time to do so, well at least it is a more interesting place to sign than an intimidating label office.
Being a bit out of the loop music wise recently, I had completely missed the hype of Old Dominion until late 2015. I can be forgiven, I was having a baby. Not being too absent from Twitter, Old Dominion was certainly a name that kept appearing on my twitter feed over and over again. Due to this, I had to give the album a listen and immediately downloaded it on apple music.
Instantly, I warmed to their sound. Old Dominion, from the first track, have you captivated. Every song on the album is decent and no album fillers. The lead singer, Matthew Ramsey has a great sound to his voice and in some places sounds very much like Darius Rucker. All the tracks are catchy and memorable. I particularly like ‘Said Nobody’.
The debut single ‘Break Up With Him’ is a great track and I not only see an element of Darius Rucker on this track but also that of Sam Hunt. I guess if they did not receive a record deal, it may have likely been recorded by one of the mentioned artists if not another well known one.
Other stand out tracks are ‘Snapback’, ‘ Crazy Beautiful Sexy’, ‘Half Empty’ and the more down-tempo ‘Nowhere Fast’.
I strongly recommend buying the CD or downloading the album as is a great album over all and I can only imagine that this band will blow up Nashville (not literally!) in the coming months and dominate some of the award nominations.
With just 11 tracks on Meat and Candy, it certainly leaves you wanting more.
Old Dominion will be in the UK this March as part of Country 2 Country Festival which is very exciting and will also be headlining their own show on Monday 14th March at Hoxton Bar and Kitchen in London.
