The loss of her father and an ugly, post-Glastonbury pile-on were big enough challenges for BILLY NOMATES. Then came an MS diagnosis. A third album of soul-baring post-punk pop proves she won’t be cowed, but she’s still baffled by the feedback. “People call me radical for my hair being a bit messy,” she tells JENNY BULLEY.

Photography by JACK DALLAS-CHAPMAN

TOR MARIES SQUINTS INTO THE EARLY SPRING SUNSHINE TOWARDS WHERE MOJO is pointing. The footbridge that crosses Bristol harbour leading towards Temple Meads railway station is lined with hundreds of padlocks. Is this the city’s version of Le Pont Des Arts in Paris – where locks are attached by lovers to signify their unbreakable bond?

“I don’t think these ones mean anything very significant,” Maries says, pausing to indulge me.

“Look, this one is from someone’s Pure Gym locker.”

Maries has felt the weight of far greater significance lately. Earlier that day, drinking de-caff on the waterfront in her adopted hometown, Leicestershire-born Maries picked through the series of events that have led to Metalhorse, her latest album as Billy Nomates. Her first made with a band (“really experienced professionals, not your mate with a bass”), it pivots loosely on the concept of a rundown fairground: rickety rides that represent, among other things, the precarious existence of an indie musician, played out to a dizzying Waltzer ride of ’80s post-punk and spiky pop. Giddy melodies are pre-aged with flaking layers of vintage studio effects: “cranky bits of analogue kit” like the sound of a rotating Leslie speaker sampled on its shaky axis. The lyrics, meanwhile, are a temporal cross-section of a super-articulate writer with an awful lot to process.