Dea Matrona

Commanding rock from Belfast's Dea Matrona, fronted by Orláith Forsythe and Mollie McGinn, draws strength from the pair's tightly woven harmonies. Their teenage busking days laid the foundation for the band—whose name translates as "divine mother goddess"—whose first release, the 2019 EP Away from the Tide, fused a classic-rock stomp with blues and folk inflections. Love for Led Zeppelin surfaced clearly on the 2020 single "Make You My Star," yet a Fleetwood Mac cover of "Oh Well" propelled them into wider view in 2022. Their May 2024 debut album, For Your Sins, balanced grit and polish to reach the Scottish Top 20 and number five on the U.K. Indie Chart, a versatility that also suited them to support slots with Sheryl Crow and Shania Twain. Late that year they revisited those songs in stripped-down form on the For Your Sins: Acoustic Sessions EP.

Schoolfriends Orláith Forsythe and Mollie McGinn first connected at Assumption Grammar School in Ballynahinch, County Down, through shared admiration for Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Aerosmith. Early in 2017 the pair began busking covers in central Belfast as Orláith & Mollie, trading lead vocals while alternating between bass and guitar. McGinn's father Finn, whose own bands included Tiberius' Minnows and Lazy & the Fireflys, had encouraged songwriting from childhood; at sixteen—two years before Orláith & Mollie formed—McGinn reached the under-18 semi-final of the U.K. Songwriting Contest, judged that year by producer Stuart Epps. By August 2017 the duo had self-released a four-track EP of originals titled Chains.

Expansion to a trio arrived in 2018 when McGinn recruited her younger sister Mamie on drums, prompting the name change to Dea Matrona in reference to the "divine mother" of Celtic mythology. After the eclectic April 2019 EP Away from the Tide came the agreeable acoustic country-pop track "Hard on Yourself," followed in June 2020 by the harder-rocking "Make You My Star." A crisp busking rendition of Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well" went viral and marked their breakthrough, while a cover of Them's "Gloria" earned two support dates with Van Morrison at Derry's Millennium Forum. Further visibility arrived via an RTE Late Late Show appearance, yet in February 2022 Mamie McGinn departed to explore other paths. Thereafter Dea Matrona relied on session and live drummers, enabling a string of 2022 singles and a European tour alongside Eagles of Death Metal. Those singles, among them the folk-leaning "Glory Glory (I Am Free)" and the '80s-tinged "Red Button," were compiled on a self-released December 2022 eponymous EP.

An extensive U.K. tour supporting the Kris Barras Band opened 2023. By early June the group had also performed with Foo Fighters guitarist Chris Shiflett, made their U.S. debut at SXSW in Austin, Texas, and completed a headline run across the U.K. and Ireland. Early 2024 singles such as "Stuck on You" and the Stevie Nicks-inspired "Black Rain" kept momentum high, while a cameo performance of Dolly Parton's "Light of a Clear Blue Morning" on the Belfast-set BBC drama Blue Lights reached more than four million U.K. households. Their May 2024 debut album, For Your Sins, landed at number five on the U.K. Indie Chart and inside the Scottish Top 20; December's For Your Sins: Acoustic Sessions EP then supplied unplugged readings of several album tracks.