Dark Empire was created in the winter of early 2004 by Verona, New Jersey based guitarist Matt Moliti.

In early 2005, the recording of their debut album, Distant Tides, commenced. Distant Tides released on April 25, 2006, and received numerous rave reviews from specialized publications. The album was picked up for its first official label release by Rock Machine Records in Brazil, and was remastered by renowned Finnish engineer Mikka Jussila (Children of Bodom, Stratovarius, Nightwish, etc). Their sophomore release, Humanity Dethroned, commenced recording in early 2008, and was released on May 5 of that year.

According to a post on Urban Breed's forum, both Andrew Atwood and Urban Breed are no longer in the band as of October 2010.