Kevin Bronson on February 6th, 2013

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It’s a steamy day last July in Hollywood, and Michael Sean Fitzpatrick is looking bleary-eyed but satisfied. The Fitz in the Fitz & the Tantrums had just entertained a small cadre of journalists at a listening session for five new songs from the band’s sophomore album.

“We had two months to write 32 songs, which was challenging after 20-some months of touring,” Fitzpatrick said. “But we wanted to go for an ambitious release date in the fall – you know, to strike while the iron is hot.”

Ah, the best-laid plans. That album, “More Than a Dream,” will finally arrive May 5, the band announced today. It will mark Fitz’s move from local independent label Dangerbird Records to Elektra – the imprint now helmed by former Dangerbird chief Jeff Castelaz.

The push, ostensibly to ensure that marketing and promotion were in place for the new album, marks a big step for Fitzpatrick and mates Noelle Scaggs, James King, Jeremy Ruzumna, John Wicks and Joseph Karnes. The band burst out of Silver Lake in 2009 with a club-friendly soul-pop sound rooted in bass, keyboards and horns and highlighted by the vocal interplay of Fitzpatrick and Scaggs.

Fitz’s 2010 debut album, “Pickin’ Up the Pieces,” has sold almost 150,000 copies. It was often tagged as retro-soul. “But that was mostly because it was recorded in my living room,” Fitzpatrick says.

Not so with “More Than Dream.” Tony Hoffer (Beck, M83, Depeche Mode, Phoenix) produced the new album at the Sound Factory in Hollywood, and it sounds big – with slicker beats (live drumming and programmed), bigger instrumentation and the sheen of the 1980s. “Production-wise, we’ve moved forward a decade or so,” Fitzpatrick said last July. “Our music always had a 1980s influence from the beginning – it’s soul from the New Wave movement. For me, a lover of all things ’80s, it’s where I wanted to go.

“Overall, this definitely has more in common with where we are as a live band – it matches that energy.”

There’s no preview of the music yet, but last summer’s listening session included a couple dance-friendly disco-soul singles, as well as a tribute to the “Walking Man of Silver Lake,” Marc Abrams, who died in 2010.

Photo of Fitz from the band’s 2010 Spaceland residency, by Laurie Scavo