CFDBNYC Out and About

Nova Twins – Parasites and Butterflies.
The third album from Nova Twins is in your face punk rock with a mix of feminity in. From the opening track Glory the guitars and drums starts off booming and the twins start wailing, you know that you’re in for a wild ride. Glory sets the tone of the entire album: Wild, Hyper, Knowing one’s identity and of course girl anthems. The next track Piranha shows that no one safe from the twins especially when the chorus kicks in. “Something in the water” showcases the strength of the twins in their chorus selection. The guitars and keyboards clash in this song perfectly. Monsters is up next and since it was the single release to introduce the album it is a great pop record with an adventurous sound and great lyrics. Not too cheesy but enough to tease the fans for more. Soprano and Drip are the next two tracks that describe the first half of the album brilliantly: High energy and hyperactive. Even though Rich Costey produced the entire album you can tell he give them free reign to express their lyrical output and instrumental range. From there N.O.V.A. hits and the energy turns up a notch. Lyrically this is the best song off the whole album. The girls definitely let their imagination run wild and from there their expression gets bolder and stronger. A example of this is Parallel Universe where the girls definitely talks bold and the music behind them backs it up, The most frenetic song on the album is this one and it works so well. Very uptempo and can be easily played in any club (or bar for that matter) Parallel Universe is one of the better songs of the album.
When you towards the end of the album the energy is still turn up but the songs loses some steam lyric wise when Hide and Seek plays as if the album is on auto pilot and gets cruises from there. After that the last three songs are consistent with winding down. The album is a constant rage fest for those who want to do so all day for ones who do so accordingly this is not the album for them. As great as Nova Twins are it seems with Parasites and Butterflies they’re on the cusp on breaking out overseas here in the States but not there yet. This is a great building block to work on for the next album where their sound by that time will be more refined and well rounded. A great effort here but maybe left undesired for some. I would probably say this is definitely one of the better UK imports of this year and continues the tradition of modern day UK punk. The songs to watch for are: Glory, Parallel Universe, N.O.V.A, Monsters and Drip. The rest are avoidable and mostly for one listen only. If you looking for a rating here I’ll say it’s eight out of ten.