Conceived in the winter of early 2004, Dark Empire is the vision of Long Island, NY based guitarist Matt Moliti to create what in his eyes would be the epitome of the perfect metal band: thrashy riffs, blazing solos and aggressive yet melodic vocals, full of energy and emotion.

Influenced by bands such as Rage and Symphony X, Matt began writing
the music for the band in that very same year, working alongside friend and producer Jeremy Krull.

In the subsequent months, Matt started to look for a frontman for Dark Empire. He tried to experiment with a few local vocalists but the quality of the vocalists that tried out was never up to Matt's standards. That was until Matt discovered the Swedish power metal band Persuader, featuring vocalist Jens Carlsson. Matt then knew that Jens would fit perfectly in Dark Empire and contact was made. After a few emails exchanged, Jens was announced as the voice of Dark Empire on the first record, named Distant Tides.

The vocal spot was taken but Matt still needed to fill in the bass and drum positions. He got in touch with bassist Noah Martin, who he previously met at the ProgPower V festival, and got recommended a young drummer in Finland, Teemu Tahkanen. Dark Empire's lineup was
completed.

The recordings started to take place in early 2005. All guitars and bass were recorded in Matt's home studio while Teemu and Jens recorded their parts in Finland and Sweden. Then, after being mixed by Krull, the album was sent to be mastered by Gary Fulton, and it finally became ready to be released.

Releasing the album wasn't an easy task, however. After a few months of difficulties finding an interested label, Matt decided that the best choice for Dark Empire's Distant Tides would be to release it independently. Distant Tides saw the light of the on April 25th 2006, being released worldwide and receiving rave reviews by numerous specialized publications. The album was recently picked up for its first official label release by Rock Machine Records in Brazil, and given a sonic facelift, being remastered by renowned Finnish engineer Mikka Jussila (Children of Bodom, Stratovarius, Nightwish, etc), along with a bonus track and revised artwork by artist Gustavo Sazes.

In the late summer/early fall of 2006, Matt started writing the follow-up
to Distant Tides. As the writing process began, Matt realized Dark Empire needed a drummer that could rehearse on a regular basis in preparation for taking the band to a live environment, and it was decided that Teemu had to be let go. Fortunately, it didn’t take long to find a replacement, as Noah indicated the perfect guy for the job: Sam Paulicelli (Suspyre, Mutiny). Noah had played Sam some of the demos Matt had been writing while he was tracking the latest Suspyre album and Sam loved it. When Sam heard Dark Empire was looking for a drummer, he jumped at the chance to fill Teemu’s shoes. Contact was made between Sam and Matt shortly thereafter. Before long enough Sam was officially in Dark Empire.

Dark Empire is currently preparing to rehearse and record their sophomore album, entitled Humanity Dethroned, with a release planned for the spring/summer of 2007.

www.darkempire.nu
www.myspace.com/darkempireband