Blurring the line between hip-hop and grimy post-punk, ‘A Day at the Races’ builds around a swampy guitar lead over a stomping groove, an uncanny atmosphere immediately being set thanks to its ability to sound freakishly disorientating yet completely absorbing at once. Like most of Innocent Times, Bistro’s latest album and second release for the year, there’s a thrilling irreverence to the track’s beat, with its almost drunken pulse. It’s a suitable backdrop however, because while the instrumentation feels mangled and unsteady, perhaps mirroring the “grotesque sides of Australian culture” that Bistro raps about, his vocals are clear and forcefully seething.

Describing the culture as one “where people patriotically defend alcoholism, sexual misadventure, horse slaughter and racism as freedoms”, there’s an overwhelming sensation as Bistro tackles each of these elements at a cut-throat pace, his sneer becoming more and more venomous as the rhymes stack up haphazardly until the track erupts into a wall of fuzzed-out noise.

Created by Brock Tenstrom, the new clip for ‘A Day at the Races’ doesn’t try to match the frenzied atmosphere of the track. Instead, the video is decidedly simple, mostly made up of footage of Bistro rapping over a schooner at a typical Australian pub. Yet, considering the track’s manic energy - one that barely manages to encompass how warped the racing industry actually is - it’s a fitting visual accompaniment, leaving plenty of room for Bistro to drive his point home while he stares down the camera or grins mischievously at his surroundings, seemingly out of place but very much in his element.