Cave of Swimmers is a Progressive Metal
duo based in Miami, Florida. The two guys making this happen, known simply as
GE and Toro, are childhood friends originally from Venezuela. When I first give
an album a listen, I usually go in blindly without allowing myself any
background on the band before hand. I was absolutely amazed when I found out
that this music was coming from two guys.
These guys have a really cool sound. To start, they’re
both really good at their respective instruments. There’s a lot being offered
from the guitar, drums, and vocals. Throughout the album you can hear
percussive sounds that you wouldn’t normally hear in metal, and it’s really
quite refreshing. They often make use of slow, pronounced riffs on the guitar,
regularly doubling the vocals, which deserve some mention on their own. GE can
create quite a diverse sound with his voice. He often goes from the lower
baritone register, sounding almost operatic, to high pitch, strong vibrato type
vocals you’d hear in heavy metal bands from the mid to late 80s. They have a
sound that makes me think of what might happen if Iron Maiden and Rainbow became
one. This is idea is really present in their first song “The Prince of the
Power of the Air”, as it makes me think a lot of Rainbow’s “Stargazer”. Speaking of the first song, let’s talk more about that for a
moment. It’s a ten minute piece of music that utilizes a lot of recurring
structure, and if there’s anything I’ve learned about long pieces of music, it’s
that doing the same thing over and over again can get really old, really
quickly, but they really pulled it off. There was a lot of interjection of new
ideas that kept the song exciting. Considering that this album consists only of
four different songs, this same idea is utilized repeatedly.
Now, I wondered a bit, since they’re a band consisting of a
guitarist and a drummer, how they would fare in live setting. On the album,
it’s clear that they make use of a bass guitar in order to make the guitar sound
fuller. And the bass is pretty much always doubling the guitar, except suddenly
in “Still Running”, where there’s a bass solo, which I suppose could also be
done by a guitar, so that’s okay. But then at another point, there’s a moment
where the synthesizer and guitar are kind of playing off of each other. There’s
a lot of layering that I suppose could be made possible with the help of a good
pedal board, but some things I’m just not sure how they’d manage it.
That aside, these two are really good musicians that put
together a solid album. I highly recommend anyone who is into progressive metal
to give this a listen.
