Conscious Pilot aren’t shouting into the void — they’re clucking straight through it.

New single ‘Human Poultry’ sees the Glasgow post-punk quartet lean harder, faster and more direct than ever, turning workplace burnout, low balances and quiet resentment into something sharp, funny and uncomfortably familiar. It’s a track that doesn’t just vent — it circles the feeling of being slowly worn down by everyday life, catching itself between frustration and dark humour in a way that feels distinctly theirs. With their debut album of the same name landing May 8th, the band are stepping into a new phase: louder, more urgent, and still grounded in the strange, mundane realities that shape their world.

Below, they break down the ideas behind ‘Human Poultry’, the balance of humour and heaviness, and why everyday life keeps finding its way into their music.

“Human Poultry” captures that feeling of being worn down by everyday life—how did the idea evolve from a personal experience into something more universal?

Initially, when first putting lyrics to the bass riff, Jack was ruminating over when he was fired from an old job. Subsequently, the song became more about his current job and not having any money, which then meant it automatically morphed to become partly about the whole senseless racket of devoting most of one’s life to lining the pockets of the vampirous, faceless rich. Then, the whole thing became a big whinge fest about feeling like you’re being devoured; or rather, raised for slaughter. The humble chicken felt like a good metaphor, as singing the song feels a bit like clucking into a void.

The track balances humour with heavier emotions like frustration and self-doubt—how important is that contrast in your songwriting?

Yeah, that’s a good question. It’s not something we do too consciously, but I think for a song to feel properly balanced in our eyes the emotions must be balanced too. Obviously, there are songs that we’ve written that are more on the nose than others. But, overall, the album feels balanced in the way that your question highlights. I think there is something there to do with where we’re from. I think that, in the UK, we find it hard to feel anguish in earnest, and we cut difficult emotions with dryness to make them edible. I’m not saying this is good or bad; it just is what it is, and it finds its way into our music via osmosis. I am attracted to other artists that hold contrasting emotions in their songs as well, I think that’s because it feels more interesting, and truer to life as I experience it.

You’ve described the album as reflecting the “quiet indignities of existing”—what moments or experiences in Glasgow most shaped that perspective?

I guess that the quiet indignities of the day to day aren’t really “moments” as such. I suppose you could reference something like, looking at your bank balance after giving most of your wage to your landlord, being rejected from a job application with a blanket email or wiping piss from the rim of the toilet. However, it's more something like swallowing petty resentments and carrying them around like an abscess that you pray will never burst. It's not too much of a geographically specific thing, although the gallows humor that exists, and has always existed, in Glasgow definitely makes the music feel at home in this city. Glasgow is a good home for people who try to turn their unavoidable bouts of cynicism into something positive and/or creative.

This release feels heavier and more urgent than your earlier work—was that a conscious shift in sound, or something that happened naturally as the band evolved?

I think this happened on its own. There are certainly more tracks in this group of songs that feel streamlined and fast out of the blocks in this way than we’ve ever written. The signature groove we’ve always had is, however, going feature on this album a fair bit as well. We just wanted the first couple of singes to show this fresh, fast side of ourselves. We will regret it when we have to play the songs live all the time; they are a big workout.

Your music touches on everything from work and technology to religion and art—what draws you to exploring those everyday themes through a post-punk lens?

Again, it’s not a massively conscious decision. We’re not just putting a mirror up to our lives, and there must be some kind of process of topic selection going on subconsciously. However, we don’t go into writing with specific intentions. We just automatically write about what tickles our fancy and try to do it in ways that we find interesting. To take this on a slight tangent and comment generally on why I think artists specifically talk about “work” a lot these days. It’s because they are all working full-time. Again, I’m not making a comment on whether this is good or bad. It’s just that I think we’re at a stage in modern history in this country where artists are more likely than at any other stage to be working full time, even at pretty “high levels” (whatever that means). I’d rather not work at the post office as much as I do, but it is what it is, and our work can’t help but incorporate our lived reality.