It goes overlooked how quick and how significant Nova Twins’ rise has been. You almost need to credit the dichotomy that they exist within for that, because it’s become such a crucial part of their identity. On one hand, they’re a defiantly individualistic entity in working a breed of rock music made to feel all their own. On the other, they’re the red-carpet fashionistas of the alt scene, the recipients of BRIT and Mercury Prize nominations, and the leaders of 2020’s campaign for the MOBOs to recognise alternative music. In the centre, you’re left with one of most tacitly defining bands of the modern era.
And you’d think for as showy as Nova Twins are (which isn’t a complaint, BTW), they’d have really run into that with all guns blazing. Instead—despite the easiest opportunities in the world to sell out hard—their alternative component really has been what drives them. If you want to see how deeply that runs, too, Parasites & Butterflies is like a speedrun in itself. Nova Twins would’ve been just fine sticking exactly where they were, rather than jumping from their highest pedestal to date into what’s effectively a deconstruction of themselves.
Or, more accurately, a deconstruction of how they tend to be perceived. Up to now, the defining side of Nova Twins has been when they’re at their most ostentatious, on songs like Cleopatra and Choose Your Fighter where the mix of garage-rock, hip-hop and electronica is at its most searing. On Parasites & Butterflies, however, there’s a fair amount of de-emphasis around that. The version of Nova Twins on here can be feel more tactile and turned-down, though don’t take that to mean it’s bad. It’s arguably the most dimensional they’ve ever been, just for the new, odd steps that seem more common than ever.
But even so, when Nova Twins do go back to swaggering self-affirmations that make them appear a hundred feet tall, it’s still where they shine the most. N.O.V.A. is the obvious one of those with its thick coating of bass grime and the clear zenith of shoutalong choruses, where its whoops pierce through like bullets for added impact. Soprano isn’t far behind either, and when you get past the awkward opening line “She’s a bad bitch, like Jessica Rabbit”, you’ve got another torrent of sleaze and sizzle to find yourself coated in.
It’s also where you one of a litany of diverse vocal performances that Parasites & Butterflies has hitched its wagon to in the name of Nova Twins’ growth. Here, Amy Love dips into this low croak that almost certainly has a lineage of nu-metal behind it, only to have it never seen again for the duration of the album. It certainly leaves an impression, which appears to be the whole point given that vocal histrionics have regularly been a key piece of Nova Twins’ arsenal, and it’s only been turned up for Parasites & Butterflies. Fewer outright slammers leaves space for added flexibility, and while there’s not always a blunt power (especially in Love’s highest, most girlish register), it’s almost always interesting in technique. In the acidic chatter of Drip or tight, slightly uncanny jitter of Sandman, there’s no one in the immediate vicinity with quite the same way of feeling these vocal leads out.
Therein lies another crucial dichotomy in Nova Twins—they’re outwardly playful, but always with the threat of biting your hand off should you get too close. Parasites & Butterflies is still a very raw-feeling album, as a grind or snarl or barely-contained quiver of animalism is never too far away. It’s the sort of thing that always has and will work about Nova Twins; even now on a shake-up of this stature, the onslaught of fuzz filling Piranha or Monsters can’t be scrubbed away that easily. There’s also just a lot of jagged or exposed edges feeling very deliberately placed. Nova Twins carry their edge with a lot more grace and worth than some of their peers (*cough* Wargasm *cough*), and a sharp shock of anything plays far better in their hands. On Parallel Universe, there’s a scraping of melody bizarrely reminiscent of Britney Spears’ If U Seek Amy, and while it’s almost entirely unintentional (maybe), it really does glue itself to your brain.
Broaden your scope to a macro level, and you’ll find Nova Twins’ creative arrow flying into dubstep territory, with curious speed and precision. As far as a song like Sandman is concerned, it quite simply is a dubstep song, replete with grinds and gurgles on a drop that’s not even on the same continent as inconspicuousness. On the very next song with how glassy and minimalist it is, Hummingbird might as well be post-dubstep, a lane hitherto uncolonised by the alternative space (from what comes to mind, anyway). The effort is appreciable though it’s too wonky to be considered all that great, and it’s the crown atop a small stack of decisions on Parasites & Butterflies that don’t quite work.
That’s always a bit of a given on efforts like this, even for an act that radiates confidence like Nova Twins so regularly do. And while it’s not always tied to some shaky new steps (Black Roses is the latest in a line of unfortunately uneventful Nova Twins closers), predominantly, it’s a case of the gears not meshing entirely. The chorus of Drip is a real dud as it bricks out and deliberately sinks after a really impressive, feverish drum performance carries it. There’s an issue on Hurricane that’s almost identical in form—the military clack of the drums is terrific, but there’s a disappointing flatness to the hook that only simmers instead of boils.
There are other things that could be noted (like how the sequencing isn’t the smoothest, overall), but Nova Twins carry Parasites & Butterflies far beyond where that’s a significant issue. It’s the benefit of an act so entrenched in their desire to move both forwards and outwards. You get albums like this that deviate from the expected big swings, and ultimately get held aloft by performers with such an overwhelmingly strong personality that even the flaws don’t see so huge. That’s why Nova Twins have become the force that they are, and why an album like Parasites & Butterflies can exist in such clear opposition to the mainstream ecosystem courting its creators. In modern parlance, Nova Twins are the embodiment of ‘alternative’, and their music, style and listener-base is all the richer for it.
For fans of: Vukovi, Cassyette, FEVER 333
‘Parasites & Butterflies’ by Nova Twins is released on 29th August on Marshall Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
