Adored by Björk, Massive Attack and Elton John, the cult avant-popsters are back with an album that takes in everything from Greek church bells to Ukraine. We meet the Barnett twins among the Southend amusement arcades

Jack and George Barnett arrange to meet me at the Hope Hotel, an 18th-century pub in their native Southend. With Talking Heads on the jukebox and pints already flowing at midday, it feels like we’ve stepped back into the good-time Essex seaside town of old. The twins arrive, Jack in a dark grey tweed and black fleece, George in knitwear and leather jacket. They suggest going outside so we don’t have to shout over 1980s hits, but if anything the sonic interference of Southend – all amusement arcades and revving motors – is worse.

It turns out this chimes with the creation of Crooked Wing, the fifth album from their band These New Puritans. Jack was living on an industrial estate in Tottenham, London, between factories and evangelical churches. “I think some of the loudness,” he says, “comes from trying to compete with all the machinery and religious ecstasy.”