The duo count Elton and Rage Against the Machine among their fans, but being two Black women in a largely white, male scene means working twice as hard. The duo discuss winning over the mosh pit – and why they’ve banned synths

Nova Twins vocalist-guitarist Amy Love is trying to make me feel better about the litany of things that have gone wrong during our one-hour chat. She and her bandmate Georgia South entered the shabby-chic dressing room of London’s Omeara in a whirlwind of denim, arraying themselves on the mismatched armchairs after a soundcheck that didn’t entirely go to plan – my Dictaphone broke, South’s battling a cold, I realised I had the wrong notebook with me … We’re all feeling a little frazzled as trains rumble by and South boils the kettle for a Lemsip.

The fact chaos swirls around Nova Twins is fitting, perhaps. Their brand of boot-stomping rock takes the pop and R&B music they’d grown up with and distorts it to hell. Nu-metal adjacent, they play a kind of grimy rap-rock with the energy and hooks of the pop end of punk.