Nova Twins: “When we’re on stage, we feel unstoppable. We want people to feel that energy when they’re listening at a show or at home”

Just when you think it’s all been done, a badass duo comes roaring out of London with a vibrant new sound. 

The music of Nova Twins is a mind-bending speedball of heavy rock, hip-hop, punk, pop, EDM, crime movies and road rage. A big part of the magic lies in the electronic-sounding tones that guitarist/vocalist Amy Love and bassist Georgia South wring from their effect pedals. Don’t even bother asking what those pedals are, though.

“It’s almost like a secret recipe,” Love says. “If your grandma has a secret recipe, you don’t go tell everyone that recipe. I don’t really want to know how Tom Morello or Royal Blood get their sonics. I just want to enjoy it.” 

Nova Twins’ eclectic style is partly a product of their diverse heritage: Love is of Iranian/Nigerian descent, and South is Jamaican/Australian. On the duo’s second full-length album, Supernova, traces of their far-flung ancestry can be heard in the harmonic minor runs that introduce Antagonist and in the leads at the end of Cleopatra, which seem to derive from an aggressive variant of the Phrygian dominant scale.

Love’s style of guitar playing comes from instinct rather than formal training. With some encouragement from South’s father, she picked up the guitar in her early 20s, when Nova Twins were first forming. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘God, how am I going to start now? My brain isn’t spongy anymore!’” she notes with a laugh.

As self-proclaimed “boss bitches,” Nova Twins fill their songs with unrepentant odes to their own strength and well-worded vows to crush their enemies. Edgy as it might be, their message is ultimately a positive one, especially coming from two powerful women of color. 

“When we’re on stage, we feel unstoppable,” South says. “We want people to feel that energy when they’re listening at a show or at home.” 

Love and South’s explosive anthems of empowerment have won them cover stories in Kerrang! and NME, not to mention spots as a supporting act for the likes of Rage Against the Machine, Bring Me the Horizon, Yungblud, Wolf Alice and Prophets of Rage. At this rate, we should be seeing a custom Nova Twins effect pedal in no time. (May we suggest naming it the Boss Bitch?) 

• Supernova is out now via Marshall Records.