A strong empha­sis on melody and struc­ture define Mar­tin Dosh’s music. On Tommy, he keeps in fine form while con­tin­u­ing to layer dis­parate ele­ments between melodies. The drums are more hec­tic, the pace more fre­netic. The open­ing free-jazz of “Sub­trac­tions” gives lis­ten­ers intensely paced per­cus­sion while the gui­tar and keys dance between its whirl­wind. Even when melodies are lush and beau­ti­ful, such as on “Yer Face,” Dosh’s drum­ming sounds like a blender; kicks and snares sur­round each other furiously.

Infre­quently, Dosh slows it down and presents lis­ten­ers with a sim­ple song like “Num­ber 41,” fea­tur­ing the gui­tar and vocals of Andrew Bird. It’s a vibrant meld­ing of hip-hop and folk with crunchy drums and waves of dis­tor­tion back­ing piano cas­cades and sharp strumming.

Also included is “Call The Ket­tle,” a live sta­ple of Dosh shows that has been rein­vented for Tommy with dense instru­men­ta­tion, a blar­ing sax­o­phone giv­ing way to thick drums and bright keys. Sim­i­lar to “Num­ber 41,” the pop of “Nev­er­met” com­bines a lop­ing beat with folk stylings as Bird returns to the mix. This time the pace is lazier and more ephemeral, almost as if the music is heard through a loosely boarded win­dow fight­ing against dis­tant thun­der. “OK, here we go” is the matter-of-fact kick­off to the final song on Tommy, called “Gare de Lyon,” which clocks in at about eight min­utes. Start­ing in near-silence with whis­per­ing gui­tars and Rhodes organ, the per­cus­sion aligns itself with the pro­ceed­ings, slowly wind­ing around the song’s melody. All the while, the fig­ure con­tin­ues to esca­late, pro­vid­ing a con­tin­ual impres­sion of for­ward motion. A brief inter­lude of spo­ken word soon her­alds the explo­sive denoue­ment of heavy gui­tar riffs and vio­lent drum stabs. It’s a shock­ing and fan­tas­tic end to this dynamic album.