Shannon Harewood-Malone
Whether it’s campaigning for the MOBO awards to recognise alternative music with its own category, or crafting their on-stage outfits under their fashion label Bad Stitches, London duo Nova Twins follow their own rulebook. In the three years since their last album Supernova, childhood best friends Amy Love and Georgia South have embarked on an exhaustive tour circuit spreading their unapologetic, boot-stomping blend of electronically-infused punk, rap and rock in support of Foo Fighters, Muse and Lenny Kravitz. And yet in spite of this success earned off the back of their first two albums, the ticking timer sine their last release had a growing sense of imposter syndrome rising to the surface. It’s this creeping uncertainty and the pressure to build on the momentum of their previous work which informs their newest instalment. Travelling to Vermont to produce alongside Rich Costey (Foo Fighters, Deftones, Charli XCX), recording for Parasites & Butterflies began under the passage of a total solar eclipse – a fitting scene for an album centred on persevering through uncertain darkness and self-doubt to find the light.
Ushered in by wavering distortion and ethereal echoes, grandiose opener ‘Glory’ features a gospel style melody from Love that showcases her range like never before as she evokes imagery of serpents and angels that match the divinity of her vocals. A knock and chiming doorbell signify the arrival of the first breakdown: a kick-ass explosion of distortion, fuzz and pounding drums in true Nova Twins style. The tracklist ebbs and flows between moments of bold braggadocio, anxiety and self-doubt best encapsulated by lead single ‘Monsters’. Love’s reverbed vocals soar above characteristically low, foreboding guitar fuzz, a powerful chorus on standing defiant in the face of your own demons bursting through the stuttering drums and agitated lyricism of the verses.
The skittish drumming, breathy melodies and brazen self-confidence of ‘Drip’ and glitchy breakdown amidst crushing drop-tuned riffs on ‘Sandman’ form two of the most exciting moments on the album. While electronic influence has always been at the core of their sound, this venture into a drum and bass influence injects some much-needed freshness and feels like a heavier, darker take on sister duo ALT BLK ERA’s Rave Immortal (2025) at times. However, there are plenty of times where the tracklist feels characteristically and expectedly Nova Twins to the point of near boredom. Even brief moments of excitement, like South’s swaggering basslines that buzz up and down the fretboard on ‘Hide & Seek’, get lost in choruses that feel like B-sides from their previous work.
And yet despite this overreliance on their established sound, there isn’t a standout song that packs the same punch as crowd-pleasing heavy hitter ‘Undertaker’, the crunchy riffs and staccato screams of ‘Antagonist’ or even their recent brief feature on Ho99o9’s ‘Incline’. In fact, the first and only screams from Love on this record arrive 27 minutes into its 36-minute runtime on ‘Parallel Universe’ amidst a blaring breakdown of glitchy guitar distortion and crashing drums, and are over before there’s time to reflect on just how much they’ve been missed. Instead, the album operates in a more confidently commercial sound with a selection of algorithmically engineered singles scattered across its runtime. The anthemic ‘N.O.V.A’ boasts a repetitive chorus that feels designed solely for crowd interaction and online engagement, the swooping melody burrowing into your brain after a single playthrough whether you like it or not. Outside of it’s hook the lyrics appear a mere afterthought, the flat verse-chorus pattern rinsing, repeating and miraculously managing to feel like a drag at only 2 minutes 40 seconds.
And while ‘N.O.V.A’ is a clumsy attempt at bottling the brand of bad bitch energy that appeals to teens who’ve just discovered fishnets and graphic eyeliner, it’s hard to get too frustrated with the single when it so clearly achieves what Nova Twins have set out to do from the beginning: carve out a much-needed safe space for people of colour to express themselves in the alternative music scene. While Parasites & Butterflies doesn’t pack the punch needed to be a standout album, it’s undoubtedly an important stepping stone on the journey of driving forward representation in a scene that still has a lot of work to do. And one look at footage from live shows or the ‘N.O.V.A’ music video shows Nova Twins have crafted a diehard fanbase that aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.