Nova Twins on near-burnout, finding balance, and new album ‘Parasites & Butterflies’
Cover Feature
Nova Twins: Angels and Demons
After the dizzying success of second album ‘Supernova’, Nova Twins may have looked like superheroes on the outside, but things were getting darker within. Now, via the making of third album ‘Parasites & Butterflies’, they’ve navigated their way through the tunnel to become the most balanced version of themselves yet.
Words: Sarah Jamieson
Photos: Ed Miles
20th May 2025
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There’s no denying that a little bit of sunshine makes everything feel better, and few know that as well as Nova Twins. When we meet the duo today in a sunny East London café, conversation quickly turns – as it so often does – to the weather, and the unexpected heatwave that’s lurking around the corner. It’s a promise that bassist Georgia South is rather thrilled about.It’s little surprise as to why the changing of the seasons feels so integral to the band right now; not only does it bring the promise of a summer packed with festival performances for the duo, but it also serves as a reminder of how far they’ve come since the darker days that surrounded the writing of their forthcoming third album, ‘Parasites & Butterflies’.For anyone unfamiliar with Nova Twins’ career so far, it’s featured a breakneck rush of high energy live shows and boundary-pushing accolades. Having formed all the way back in 2014 – as two teenage friends in London, pushing against genre limitations to produce a unique and electrifying blend of rap, rock and dubstep – the pair’s trajectory has gone skyward in the past five years, thanks to their 2020 debut full-length ‘Who Are The Girls?’ and its 2022 follow-up ‘Supernova’. And that’s all aside from their unwavering dedication to supporting their community: back in 2020, the band published an open letter to the MOBOs, encouraging them to introduce a Rock / Alternative Category (which the awards proceeded to do the following year); they’ve long been supporters of the initiatives of Music Venue Trust; and more recently, in 2023, they launched a scholarship with the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance, covering the cost of an undergraduate’s three-year course.It’s not just down to these acts of activism that the pair have made such a respected name for themselves, though; their supercharged sophomore record ‘Supernova’ equally saw them collate a slew of award nominations and industry nods, with them bagging prizes at the AIM and Women In Music Awards, as well as being shortlisted for both the 2022 Mercury Prize and the following year’s BRITs.If that seems like a dizzying list of achievements in a short space of time, that’s because it is. Throw in hundreds of live shows across the world – including support slots with the likes of MUNA, Muse, Foo Fighters and many more – and numerous months away from home, and it’s difficult not to imagine feeling somewhat disconnected from real life…
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“We just wanted to make sure that there was a full perspective of our human experience.”
— Amy Love
As it so happens, that was exactly what happened for Nova Twins by the time they wound down touring for ‘Supernova’ (with a pair of huge sets opening for Muse at The O2 in London, no less). “We were so busy and we were so sleep-deprived, but also really excited and just taking everything as it comes,” vocalist and guitarist Amy Love says today, with enough hindsight to really reflect on their whirlwind few years. “It was a mixture of nerves and being anxious about things that we’ve never done before, but also excited about doing things that we’d never done before.”
While most people would use their time back at home to readjust, catch up on sleep and reacquaint themselves with their quote-unquote normal lives, instead, the band found themselves with a contractual deadline for Album Three, so work had to begin again. “We definitely did feel very disorientated coming off tour,” Georgia nods. “But we had to write the album, we had to keep the ball rolling, so I think that was definitely a [period of] big growth in terms of how much we can deal with.”Admitting to us earlier this year that their third album felt closer to the stereotypical struggles of a second album (“We were like, ‘we don’t know ourselves, we haven’t lived, we just lived in a van’,” Amy explained back then), work for what would become ‘Parasites & Butterflies’ took place mostly in the winter of 2023 and was, at times, an altogether darker experience. Faced with a tight turnaround and a sense of disconnect, their inner demons began to rear their heads. “I think when your mental state is so low,” Georgia says, hinting towards some of the record’s themes of anxiety, self-loathing and mental health struggles, “[it’s about] really finding ways to build yourself back up in new ways and rediscover yourself.”As such, their third is – thematically, at least – a more complicated beast that what’s come before. Born in the mire of these darker times, it has, in turn, allowed them to showcase the multifaceted strength and resilience that they’ve become so renowned for, without skirting over the more vulnerable moments of their inner selves.“It was a natural progression,” notes Amy, of this balancing act. “We wrote ‘Supernova’ in a time where we had to be super strong,” she s