Conscious Pilot: Human Poultry
DevilDuck Records
Out Now | Pre-Order Full Album
Glasgow post-punks Conscious Pilot share the sprawling new single Human Poultry, the title track from the upcoming debut album via DevilDuck Records. The track brings a tight wall of guitar led intensity which carries both a punk energy and a vibrant, experimental and playful edge. Simon-Lucas Hughes reviews…
Clocking in at just two minutes, the track manages to pack both a striking sense of intensity and an inventive musicality, driving the track forward with a driving sense of purpose that mirrors the feel of the band’s live shows. Recorded and written alongside Seth Evans (Black Midi, Shame, Geordie Greep), Adele Phillips (Fontaines DC) at RAK Studios in London, with Felix Davis (Geese, The Vaccines) mastering, the track flirts between layered fast guitar and bass licks which carry a math-rock rock undertone, whilst for the most-part capturing a sound which is as comparable to vintage punk as it is to more contemporary post-punk.
Pulled forward with a driving sense of momentum by the unrelenting bass and guitar work, and tight boxy drums, the track. Mirrored by the barked, visceral lead vocals, Human Poultry rattles through its two minutes to a chorus of vocals, repeating the title through in the final section. The track acts as the clearest statement yet of a band pushing itself into heavier, more uncompromising territory and setting the tone for a debut album that sounds anything but tentative.
Talking about the track, the band explain “‘Human Poultry’ is about being slowly prepped and consumed by everything around you – trying not to hate yourself for not doing enough, overthinking, and ultimately just getting through the day.”
Due May 8th via DevilDuck Records, Human Poultry is a debut album that doesn’t reach outward so much as it digs in. Written and rehearsed at ‘The Workshop’, drummer Chris McCrory’s studio in central Glasgow, the record captures the band’s first two years in the city not as a romanticised blur, but as something more textured and contradictory. These are songs about work, about boredom, about the low-level absurdity of daily existence, where humour and bleakness sit side by side, often indistinguishable.
Conscious Pilot themselves, Joe Laycock, Emmy Leishman, Jack Sharp and Chris McCrory, are a band built from convergence. Formed in 2023 after Laycock and Sharp relocated from Yorkshire to Glasgow, they’ve spent the past two years refining their identity in front of live audiences, earning them slots at festivals including The Great Escape and Reeperbahn, alongside multiple UK tours and their first European run in 2025.
With the album arriving on May 8th and a UK tour kicking off in Newcastle on May 1st, Conscious Pilot are definitely one to watch over the coming months.
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All words by Simon Lucas-Hughes. More writing by Simon Lucas-Hughes can be found at his author’s archive.
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