Sam Endicott is lead vocalist for The Bravery, which will be at Lupo’s Thursday night at 6.

AP / ROBERT E. KLEIN

When The Bravery began putting together their second record, The Sun and The Moon, they knew they were in for a challenge. Their first recording, 2003’s Unconditional EP and the 2005 self-titled full-length, bolstered the underground and Internet-based appeal they had built in their native New York and in England. But then what?

Singer-songwriter-guitarist Sam Endicott says the second record is “a tricky one for a band, because you have to decide whether you’re going to do it the way you traditionally do it, or you’re going to branch out and try new things. And we just decided that we would do both.”

The band went into a proper recording studio with producer Brendan O’Brien, and the result was the version of The Sun and the Moon that was released last year on Island Def Jam. The band’s trademark sound — a mix of the electroclash aesthetic of cheaply recorded, hard-hitting synth-based music and the electric-guitar ethic of rock ’n’ roll — got an extra shot of the organic sounds of strings and acoustic and electric guitars, producing great chilly ’80s-influenced rock such as the hit “Every Word Is Like a Knife In My Ear” and the lovely juxtaposition of keyboards and sunny acoustic guitar on “Time Won’t Let Me Go.”

They covered their old-school bases, however, by recording the same songs themselves, at home, with the same techniques in instrumentation that they used on their previous records. The result is The Sun and the Moon Complete, released this year — a double-disc set with the “official” release as the Sun side and the home recordings as the Moon side.

The differences range from subtle to stark: “Every Word … ” becomes a Kraftwerk-influenced synth-stomp; “Time Won’t Let Me Go” doubles its tempo; the somber, mostly acoustic guitar-piano ballad “Tragedy Bound” gets a blazing-fast sequencer line and a ton of electronics, reminiscent of Sparks or maybe an earnest Devo.

The Sun side “was a total experiment for us,” Endicott says, “and the experiment was to record in the way that bands normally record. Which is to go into a studio with a producer and just do it like a normal band. … And then the Moon side was us doing it the way we’ve normally done it. It’s more raw, in the basement. It’s more digital — everything’s fed into the computer and it’s more like making electronic music as a rock band.”

They had originally intended to release both discs, Endicott says, but the record company was nervous about such a high-cost move. “Once they heard it, they were totally into it.”

Working with a producer after achieving success producing yourself was an adjustment, Endicott says. “I wasn’t nervous about it, but it was very, very different.”

O’Brien was “like an editor. Having someone outside of the band, whose ego isn’t involved, to say, ‘This melody could be stronger’ or ‘These lyrics could be stronger.’ At first, we were like, ‘Shut up; you don’t know what you’re talking about,’ but then we’d sit down and realize that a lot of what he was saying was right.”

The Bravery are one of the paragons of the 21st-century method of breaking a band worldwide. Their synth-based dance rock didn’t attract a lot of industry attention in 2003, but Endicott calls that “very typical. They said ‘Oh, there’s no band out there that sounds like this.’ But then, people, like fans, were like, ‘There’s no band that sounds like this! This is great!’ And then once the industry people see that actual people like the band, they get excited about it. But they don’t have a lot of taste on their own.”

They put their first recording, a home-studio creation, online, and the first place it got any traction was in England, where a DJ began playing it on Radio One. That led to tours of the country and a British recording contract.

“Things happen quicker over there,” Endicott says of England; “they’re more about what’s the newest, latest thing. … Their press there is very tabloid, and not just the music press. … They’re always looking for new young bands to get excited about.”

Of course, that’s a two-edged sword, with the British music press dropping a band as quickly as they hoist them up. “That’s just the nature of the beast over there,” Endicott shrugs. “We just try not to be caught up in the trendiness of it.”

The same feast-or-famine culture exists in New York — or, have you seen The Strokes lately? Endicott agrees. “New York is kind of like how the U.K. is. Except even worse in a way, because if you’re popular outside of New York they immediately hate you. Boston is kind of the same way. Whereas the rest of the U.S., I don’t think is that way.”

They’ve gotten plenty of TV exposure as well, not only in live performances on Jimmy Kimmel’s and Carson Daly’s late-night shows but in the placement of “Time Won’t Let Me Go” on the shows Ugly Betty, Kaya and The Hills.

All part of the deal these days, Endicott says. “In the old days it was just radio and MTV, and now there are all kinds of [venues].” He calls TV shows, video games and movies “other kinds of radio. … I think the future is just to embrace all that, and think of these things the way people used to think of radio and MTV.”

The Bravery have an interesting summer job ahead of them, playing on Linkin Park’s Projekt Revolution tour. The package festival will put them on bigger stages than they’ve ever been on before, in front of big and probably unfamiliar audiences, but Endicott’s looking forward to the challenge. “We’re always looking for something we haven’t done before, and this is a totally new thing for us. … A festival is best when you go and there’s a lot of things to be exposed to.”

The Bravery play at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, 79 Washington St., Providence, tonight at 6 with Fiction Plane, Senior Discount and Penrose. Tickets are $12; call (401) 331-5876.

rmassimo@projo.com