Like lots of indie-rock bands these days, HEAD OF FEMUR seeks safety in numbers. Officially they’re an octet, with a core of three Nebraska-bred Chicagoans: Mike Elsener, Ben Armstrong, and Matt Focht. But on their second disc, Hysterical Stars (SpinArt), nearly 30 musicians honk, saw, pound, tinkle, wail, clang, and generally make a jubilant noise. Most overstuffed collectives get compared to the Elephant 6 tribe, but Head of Femur’s orch-pop arrangements are less zany and more immaculate–nary a horn, string, or glockenspiel is out of place. Nor is Hysterical Stars a Sgt. Pepper’s imitation, though you could argue it’s a similar project–a rollicking pastiche of childhood musical memories with all the openhearted corn and jumbled discontinuity such ambitions tend to produce. In a typical segue, the (sorta) fife-and-drum procession of “Born in the Seventies” evolves into the (kinda) Dixieland romp of “Easy Street.” Still, their jump-cut arrangements sound more logical (if not more organic) than the Fiery Furnaces’, and when they wear their hearts on their sleeves they still come off as less self-aggrandizing than Bright Eyes, in which Focht and Elsener have played. –Keith Harris
