Bassist Georgia South and vocalist and guitarist Amy Love of Nova Twins are redefining what music consumers think rock music should sound like with their emotive new brand of boot-stomping hip-hop and grime-infused pop punk album, Parasites and Butterflies, out August 29 via Marshall Records.
Across 12 tracks, the duo tackle topics such as anxiety, dissociation, and helplessness to show “the human side of life.” The album, made during the pandemic while in a dark headspace, is a “deeply honest reflection of our mindset and lives in that moment,” says South. “We never go into an album thinking about how it’s going to sound conceptually. We start from how we’re feeling, and it speaks for itself. We wrote six songs, and it was forming a bigger picture of beauty and chaos and parallels of emotions because that’s how we were feeling at the time. We’d have such beautiful moments in life, and they were met with such darkness and chaos, and we were trying to piece together our own thoughts so it came out naturally.”
With roots in London, the Twins exploded onto the independent U.K. rock scene over the past four years, being twice nominated for the BRIT Awards, securing the Mercury Music Prize, performing in festivals like Summer Sonic and Hellfest, sharing the stages with heavy hitters like Bring Me The Horizon, Muse, and Foo Fighters, and getting the opportunity to tour the world. Additionally, the band has created the initiative “Voices for the Unheard” during the pandemic which seeks to provide a platform for underrepresented, diverse artists in the alternative rock scene because of a feeling of hopelessness.
“We were feeling so hopeless during the pandemic and said, ‘What way can we make a change?’ We realized that we’re making changes through music and that’s how we can reach people,” South explains. “We were discovering so many POC bands who had not been discovered yet, putting them on our playlist, showing them to our audiences, and connecting on Instagram so our audience could see them as well. We’ve exchanged stories and have talked to bands all over the world.” They also established a Creative Musician Scholarship at ICMP Music University, and support vital causes such as The Black Curriculum.
Despite an exhilarating few years, South and Love felt internal pressure in 2023 after their rise and had to get away to collect their thoughts, remember what had worked for them musically and tune out the noise. Produced by Rich Costey in Vermont, the pair witnessed a total solar eclipse— a celestial phenomenon symbolizing new beginnings, transformation, and a catalyst for reinvention. South felt like seeing this occur “was like watching the whole concept of Parasites and Butterflies come to life before our eyes.” The vulnerability left them in a position to be brutally honest with themselves and their fans about how they were feeling. South admits that this record “was a more difficult album to write.”
“We did write more honestly this time, and we’ve never written that way before. We had the pressure from the success of Supernova, which we had never experienced before, and we were going into a new album with new pressure and more time. We had to learn to quiet those feelings of self-doubt, and I feel proud of how we’ve grown stronger by making this album because we were pushed in different ways and became more resilient.”
Singles such as the brooding “Monsters,” the mournful “Hummingbird,” and closer “Black Roses” illustrate the album’s mission of “celebrating vulnerability” and having “openness and honesty about the sad sides of life.” Other tracks like “Soprano,” a pointed uplifting celebration of women, and “N.O.V.A.”, a groovy 90s throwback showcase the band’s ability to shapeshift in sound and put their spin on rock as Black women in a predominantly white genre. With N.O.V.A. in particular, Love says that the duo “wanted to do a song that reflected on life, our family and fans, and celebrated our culture. For a long time with Who Are The Girls, people were like ‘who are they?’ and I think we’re in an era now where people are owning their truth, saying ‘We are what we are and we’re comfortable with that.'”
For the band, this album sees them unveiling their own personal battles with pressure and the anxiety around building a music career. Also, South points out that there is power in showing people that vulnerability is okay. “(The emotions) are a very human experience, and we wanted to let our fans know that it’s OK to show vulnerability. You don’t always have to appear to be a superhero or a superhuman. On the surface, we were like that for a very long time. We’ve got shit going on in our personal lives, and we’re all human at the end of the day.”
Love describes the chaotic nature of touring and the dizzying duality of performing and living a regular life taking a toll on them as being part of what drove the album. “In our years of being in a band, we’ve learned a lot, and I think this is another year of learning. After our last album Who Are The Girls? It wasn’t that demanding and there was a lockdown. We were touring for seven weeks, and then the world shut down. For this album, we came out of this pandemic where we had no contact with anyone and suddenly we were so busy but never toured that extensively in our lives. Because it was the first time, we got away with living off the adrenaline but it also caused a lot of anxiety and sleepless nights.
At the moment, it was all fine, but we got back and it stopped. Everything catches up with you, and suddenly, you’d have this hollow and uncentered feeling, and you don’t know who you are anymore. You lose sense of that. We were trying to find a center when there was no center.” This difficulty is the reason why the album revolves around feelings of anxiety. Opening up musically has helped the band push through these uncomfortable feelings. “As each month got better, a happier song formed. It’s a journey. I think that this time we’re very conscious and mindful of our mental health on tour. If it’s exercising, going for a walk, or saying ‘Actually, I need some time at home,’ we prioritize where we can because there’s no normality on tour.”
For Love, Parasites and Butterflies is the bridge between two contrasting sides of life. “Supernova was an album about empowerment and celebrating people as superheroes in the face of the pandemic and what felt like the end of the world. It was larger than life, colorful, joyous. Parasites and Butterflies deal with the chaos and darkness of life.”
With this record, the duo hopes to illuminate the importance of caring for one’s mental health. “When we saw that eclipse, we thought ‘Everything is going to be okay and this is a good omen,’ says Love. “We know that we want to help people, and that begins from being honest and not hiding anything from them. We hope that in doing so we can help people feel less isolated, or understand their own journey better, whatever it is they are feeling.”
Parasites and Butterflies is out Friday from Marshall Records, and you can preorder it here. Follow Nova Twins on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Discord for future updates.
Photo Credit: Finn Frew
