Gossip plays a show Friday night at Vino's.

LITTLE ROCK — Gossip’s newest long player Music for Men kicks off with the clack of drum sticks and a funky bass line à la Bernard Edwards on the track “Dimestore Diamond.” It’s a polished, reserved track with only the occasional repetitive burst of distorted guitar screaming out.

And the second track and lead single “Heavy Cross”? It’s a four-minute burst of dance-infused indie rock with a coolly disjointed guitar riff and lead singer Beth Ditto’s cooing. What follows on the remaining 10 tracks of Music for Men is a disco meets punk album of sometimes glitzy dance-rock (“Love Long Distance”) and sometimes raging punk rock (“8th Wonder”) — an upbeat, stylish album that’s still true to the Portland, Ore.-by-way-of-Arkansas band’s punk and DIY foundation.

After three full-length albums, a handful of EPs and a couple of live albums for Kill Rock Stars, the trio — Arkansas natives Ditto, and guitarist, bassist and synth player Nathan Howdeshell, aka Brace Paine, along with drummer Hannah Blilie — is making their major label debut for Columbia Records with Music for Men. The group’s music is now less bluesy garage rock, and more a bouncy blend of Pacific Northwest punk and Southern soul full of New Wave guitars and synths, and disco drums. It’s glitzy, refined and absolutely dazzling, a combination of musical sounds that is less messier but even more joyous than past efforts.

Music for Men was recorded in December 2008 and January 2009 with the bearded producing guru Rick Rubin — his A1 portfolio includes the best in hip-hop, Run-D.M.C.’s Raising Hell, to the best in metal, Slayer’s Reign in Blood, to the best in country, Johnny Cash’s American Recordings, and a little of everything in between — twisting the knobs. But the band’s boisterous, full embrace of sexy, fiery dance-punk music (The roots of the band’s new direction were hinted at with the 2006 release Standing in the Way of Control.) is not all Rubin’s magic touch. Father time also contributed.

“Rick was really great to work with, and the studio was killer,” said Searcy native Howdeshell via telephone as the band made its away across the Rust Belt on the U.S. tour for Music for Men. “We had all this time to work with so there was a lot of time for experimentation. Usually we only have 10 days to record an album, and this time we had a month and a half or two months, and the freedom was really amazing. I could play guitar or bass or synth or piano, so I was experimenting with everything. It was kind of cool that way.

“We just wanted to do something totally new when we were in the studio, and wanted to get re-inspired and have new things to happen so a lot of stuff was scrapped, and we just started over in the studio. But a few things stayed the same like ‘Pop Goes the World’ and ‘Heavy Cross’ which were already written, but most everything else just sort of blossomed in the studio.”

Adding to the album’s elegant dance-punk charm is the location of Music for Men’s studio: Shangri La Studios in Malibu, Calif. Built in the ’70s under the direction of Bob Dylan and the Band, the studio is currently owned by Beej Chaney, but Rubin has recorded Weezer, Metallica, and Crosby, Stills and Nash there in recent years.

“It was really great in Malibu,” Howdeshell said. “It was super great weather.

“I think it was really nice to record somewhere where it was sunny. It was really easy to wake up in the morning with the sun coming out. It’s nice weather; you can walk around outside and drink coffee outside. We recorded by the beach. There’s something nice about that. I think it affected the mood of the album in a good way.”

Formed 10 years ago in the Pacific Northwest (Both Howdeshell and Ditto moved there from Arkansas in the late ’90s.), Gossip — thanks to the 2006 single “Standing in the Way of Control” — is huge in the UK and Europe, playing sold-out festivals with Ditto gracing the cover of music magazines. But the act remains a relatively underground band — at least outside the in-the-know crowd and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community (Ditto, who is a lesbian, is a supporter of both LGBT and feminist causes.) — to American audiences.

But the band’s tour of the U.S. for Music for Men, and its first U.S. tour in three years, is garnering new fans while pleasing old fans, as the trio — with a touring bassist — blast through a set drawing mainly from the lean guitar bursts and dance rhythms of Music for Men.

Howdeshell called the audiences’ reaction to the new music “really, really amazing,” and said the band has been “kind of shocked” at how well the new music is going over with audiences.

“It’s really been a good reaction,” he said. “It’s been surprisingly good.”

And the expectations of playing a “hometown” show at Vino’s?

“It’s exciting [to be playing Little Rock]. It’s more like a homecoming. I’m super excited about it. I just think we are going to totally rip it up and have fun at Vino’s.”