NEW YORK — The Black Eyed Peas' new studio album reveals a group that has been working hard and playing harder.

Released earlier this week, "The E.N.D." ("The Energy Never Dies") is the product of the musicians' love affair with electronically based dance music. "It's a club record first and foremost," says singer Fergie. "It brings me back to when hip-hop was more dance-oriented."

"The E.N.D.'s" seeds were planted in Sydney while Peas frontman and producer will.i.am was filming "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," in which he plays a tough-guy teleporter. "I was going out every night," he recalls. When bandmate apl.de.ap "asked me what it was like shooting the movie, I was like, 'Shooting? Man, the clubs are crazy! There's a whole new sound going on.' "

Will and Apl began DJing, and the resulting groove-driven tracks pose a decided contrast to the song Will was best known for in 2008: "Yes We Can," a musical ode to then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Will jokes that fans might have expected an album called "Yes We Did." Improvising lyrics for a tune that could have appeared on such a collection, he sings, "We're gonna do it again/Grab hands, everybody/Go and call your friends/The world's a wonderful place/We're all one race."

He leans back in his sofa seat and laughs. "I don't think that's what's needed right now. The world needs a sense of escape. We have a great president, and it looks like things are moving in the right direction, but people are still hurting."

The bandmates, all 34, say the work they've done independently in recent years enhanced "E.N.D.," which has already spawned the group's first No. 1 single, "Boom Boom Pow." "Our doing individual branding just brings more awareness to the Black Eyed Peas," Taboo says.

Fergie's 2006 solo album, "The Dutchess," which Will executive-produced, yielded several hits, and she, too, is acting. In the screen version of the musical "Nine," out at Thanksgiving, she is cast alongside Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Judi Dench and Sophia Loren.

"It was an amazing experience," says Fergie, who plays a prostitute. "It was all about the character, not about me, so I could gain weight and not be self-conscious about it."

Fergie managed to plan a very personal event while shooting: her wedding in January to longtime beau Josh Duhamel. "I'd be going over sketches of wedding dresses with Kate Hudson at 1 in the morning."

Taboo, whose own acting gigs include this year's "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li," also bid goodbye to the single life when he tied the knot with Jaymie Dizon last July. But at least one member of the Peas isn't likely to settle down any time soon.

"I'm married to the work," Will says. "Somebody asked me if I was going to work in politics, but I couldn't do that. I would have to unplug myself from what we're doing now. If you're going to sleep at 10 or 11 o'clock at night and the youth are going to sleep at 5 in the morning, how can you relate to them?"

To better serve their younger, tech-savvy fans, he plans to supplement and enhance the material on "E.N.D." via the Peas' Web site as time passes. "We're going to add things and switch things around."

For Will, "it's all about staying connected. Because there's a new group of 21-year-olds every year."