English rockers, Wild Beasts, are headed out on a pretty lengthy international tour, kicking things off in Europe this month. The band will then head to the US in July, with their first stop right here in Philly. Wild Beasts, and openers Mutual Benefit, will hit the stage at Union Transfer on July 11th!

Wild Beasts released their most recent album, Present Tense, in February of this year. The album debuted at Number 5 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Albums chart. This was following a two year world tour in support of their third album, Smother, which debuted in 2011. By late 2012, the band had announced that they had started to feel burnt out and would be taking a year off from touring in order to concentrate on writing and recording the follow up album, which would become Present Tense. Most recently, they released a video for “A Simple Beautiful Truth,” the newest single from Present Tense. The song, and the album as a whole, try to emulate a different emotional response from that of the previous album. Bassist/Singer Tom Fleming described it in saying, “Sonically, we’ve continued what we’ve started on Smother with using electronics and rooting what we do in production rather than performance. Having that broader palette of sounds is something we wanted to take forward.” Recently, the guys have taken to covering Miley Cyrus’s hit track “Wrecking Ball” at their shows. Hopefully, the Philly crowd will get a chance to here their unique take on Miley’s song, which they’ve described as “really beautiful, actually, if you peel back the layers.”

Opening for Wild Beasts on the upcoming tour will be Mutual Benefit (aka Jordan Lee and friends). Mutual Benefit released their debut studio album, Love’s Crushing Diamond in October of last year. The album, primarily recorded on the road, as been described as a collection of “lush, watery, pop songs, pieced together over the past several years and inspired by the kinetic energy, goodbyes, and blurred landscapes of life on the road.” The mastermind behind Mutual Benefit is mostly Jordan Lee, but the beauty of the album is perhaps the collaborative effort amongst friends and new friends met along the way. The album was the first ever Bandcamp release to be named “Best New Music” by Pitchfork. The band also received a “Band to Watch” feature on Stereogum. With all of the growing buzz, you definitely will not want to miss Mutual Benefit when they come to Philly this July in support of Wild Beasts. Catch both acts at Union Transfer on July 11th!

Wild Beasts w/ Mutual Benefit @ Union Transfer

Friday, July 11

Show @ 8:30 PM (Doors @ 8:00 PM)

Tickets $20