Imagine a night at the opera. Now get rid of the orchestra, keep the iron lungs, toss in some drums and a howling guitar. Now rinse in distortion and repeat.
On Saturday night, Miami duo Cave of Swimmers will introduce their unique fusion of doom metal and prog-rock to the Atlantic Nightspot, located at 15 N. Main St. Tickets will be sold exclusively at the entrance for $6. Doors open at 9 p.m.
The band will play cuts off their sophomore album, “Reflections,” as well as their debut effort “Cave of Swimmers.”
Local thrashers Thunderclap, Widow and Children, and Heat Rash will be joining the band throughout the night.
“This is guaranteed to be one of the loudest shows of the summer,” said Thomas Rankine, bar manager at The Atlantic. “So you better bring earplugs!”
Originally hailing from Caracas, Venezuela, Cave of Swimmers, composed of lead singer and multi-instrumentalist G.E. Perez and drummer Arturo Garcia, currently resides in Miami, where the two can be found cramped in a garage churning out carnage-laced epics.
“We get in this really small room, and we just jam,” Garcia said of the creative process. “We usually flesh it out between the two of us.”
Garcia and Perez met in the fourth grade while still living in South America. By age 15, they were covering songs by Metallica and Rage Against the Machine, but the vision of making a career out of their own music lingered.
Once Garcia moved to the Florida in 2004 to study music at the University of Miami, Perez followed suit and moved to Florida a few years later, Garcia said. The childhood friends began traveling with other musicians and playing small gigs, but the duo didn’t emerge until 2012.
“When we first started the band, we were called The Tunnel,” Garcia said. “But due to copyright issues with an older band, we were forced to change the name. We had a song titled ‘Cave of Swimmers,’ so we went with that,” he said.
The name references a cavern in Egypt where, in 1933, a Hungarian explorer uncovered detailed etchings on its walls believed to be thousands of years old. The location appears throughout “The English Patient,” a 1996 drama based on a novel.
“It can also be a metaphor for a womb,” Garcia added.
The duo’s unusual stage presence makes the live shows a must-see. Perez can be heard wailing on his guitar and pushing synth pedals with his feet, all the while belting out lead vocals. Garcia’s nimble percussion adds depth to the doom.
“We really give it our all, you know?” Garcia said. “G.E. (Perez) is all over the place, shaking his head. He transforms.”
[A version of this story ran on page 12 on 7/30/15]
