Serpentine Dominion is an American

death metal Death metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep death growl, growling vocals; aggressive ...

supergroup consisting of

Killswitch Engage Killswitch Engage is an American metalcore band from Westfield, Massachusetts, formed in 1999. The band's current lineup consists of vocalist Jesse Leach, guitarists Joel Stroetzel and Adam Dutkiewicz, bassist Mike D'Antonio, and drummer Justin ...

lead guitarist

Adam Dutkiewicz Adam Jonathan Dutkiewicz (born April 4, 1977) is an American musician and record producer. He is the lead guitarist of the metalcore bands Killswitch Engage, Aftershock (band), Aftershock and Times of Grace (band), Times of Grace, as well as the ...

Cannibal Corpse Cannibal Corpse is an American death metal band formed in Buffalo, New York, in 1988, now based in Tampa, Florida. The band has released sixteen studio albums, two box sets, four video albums, and two live albums. The band has had little radio ...

vocalist

George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher George Fisher (born July 8, 1970), better known by his stage name Corpsegrinder, is an American death metal vocalist who is the lead singer of Cannibal Corpse, Paths of Possession and the supergroup Serpentine Dominion. ''Loudwire'' placed Fi ...

and former The Black Dahlia Murder drummer

Shannon Lucas Shannon Lucas (born September 27, 1983) is an American heavy metal drummer from Staunton, Virginia. He is best known as the former drummer for melodic death metal band the Black Dahlia Murder and metalcore band All That Remains. Career Lu ...

. They released their debut album on October 28, 2016.

History

The origins of Serpentine Dominion can be traced back to 2009's

Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival The Mayhem Festival is a metal festival that takes place during the summer. The inaugural season took place in 2008; the festival later became an annual event across the United States. Most years also included a single date in either Montreal or ...

, which

and The Black Dahlia Murder were all part of. The project began when Dutkiewicz wrote songs for Fisher and asked him to perform vocals over them, which he agreed to. Dutkiewicz also stated that the songs were written specifically for Fisher. Shannon Lucas was tapped to record the drums for the album. On July 22, 2016, the band announced that their name would be "Serpentine Dominion". On August 11, 2016, they revealed the release date and track listing for their self-titled debut, to be released under

Metal Blade Records Metal Blade Records (often shortened to Metal Blade) is an American independent record label founded by Brian Slagel in 1982 based in the U.S. state of California. The label primarily focuses on heavy metal. History Metal Blade Records was ...

. ''Serpentine Dominion'' was officially released on October 28, 2016, and was met with positive reviews from both fans and critics.

Musical style

Serpentine Dominion's sound has been described as

, and

extreme metal Extreme metal is a loosely defined umbrella term for a number of related heavy metal music subgenres that have developed since the early 1980s. It has been defined as a "cluster of metal subgenres characterized by sonic, verbal, and visual tran ...

, when asked about the project's musical style, Dutkiewicz said: "It's not straight death metal — there's some melodic elements in there — but it's much faster and more aggressive than Killswitch Engage is. And the drums are blazing, so Shannon is probably one of the only guys on the face of the earth who could pull this off." The band's lyrics for their debut album were written by Killswitch Engage vocalist

Jesse Leach Jesse David Leach (born July 3, 1978) is an American musician, best known as the lead vocalist of the metalcore band Killswitch Engage. He is also a vocalist for Times of Grace and The Weapon. Leach co-founded Killswitch Engage in 1999, but lef ...

. Fisher stated in "The Jasta Show": "I originally was going to write stuff, and you know what? Writing lyrics has just never been my thing, and we were getting down to when I was supposed to go up there and lay down my vocals. And Adam just said 'Look, I'll ask Jesse to write some stuff.' So he wrote it, and I just said I don't want no pro-religious crap 'cause I ain't about all that. Anyway, so it's more just about like getting revenge against corrupt motherfuckers and shit like that."

Members

– guitar, bass, vocals * George Fisher – vocals *

– drums

Discography

* ''Serpentine Dominion'' (2016,

)

References

American death metal musical groups Extreme metal musical groups {{US-metal-band-stub