Has the icy raw winter made you more than a bit grumpy?

Do you keep seeing river bank mirages of mosh pits and the hot X-Fest sun and heavy metal raining down?

Well, metal heads, there's a Shadow's Fall for that.

The Grammy-nominated, metal masters Shadow's Fall is ready to blast a hard-core hole through the heart of winter.

The Springfield, Mass.-based band that rocked the 12th annual X-Fest stage back in September 2008, is back in Huntington to throw down Wednesday, Feb. 10, at the V Club, 741 6th Ave., (7 p.m. door, 7:30 p.m. show) with 2 Cents, Downtrend, Shortthrow and Chizel. Touring off its new CD, "Retribution" debuted this past fall at No. 3 on Billboard's Hard Music Chart and No. 3 on Billboard's Independent Music Chart.

That band, which started its nationwide tour Jan. 21 in Anaheim, Calif., is having a great winter.

In addition to throwing down live with some hard-core greats like God Forbid (which is booked for a show at the V Club this spring) and Five Finger Death Punch, Shadow's Fall learned that they'll join Death Punch, Korn, Rob Zombie and a slew of others on the summer-long RockStar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival tour.

In late January, the band also enjoyed the release of their second song to Guitar Hero. The blistering song, "Still I Rise," was released on the first metal track pack of 2010 for Activision's Guitar Hero video game series on the PlayStation 3, XBOX 360 and Nintendo Wii video game consoles.

Previously, the band had its song "The Light That Blinds" from the 2004 album, "The War Within," featured as a bonus track in Guitar Hero 2 in 2006.

Bassist Paul Romanko of Shadow's Fall said the first Guitar Hero exposure ended up being huge for the band, which has been thrashing about since 1995 releasing five full-length CDs in that time, and earning two Grammy nods.

"You definitely get a lot of peripheral fans and that CD really regained some life when 'Light that Blinds' was on Guitar Hero," Romanko said. "It really brought a lot more attention to that album and gave it a whole set of wing, and also got it to some of the younger fans that may not be familiar with you either. You pop that on and those little kids are just killing that thing, better than we can. It's pretty wild, and who knows at the worst it is giving them a sense of rhythm."

Shadow's Fall definitely caught a rhythm on "Retribution," this past year's follow to 2007's critically acclaimed "Threads of Life."

The band worked with longtime producer Zeuss (Hatebreed, Municipal Waste) but also used a Virginia studio and Elvis Baskette (Incubus, Alter Bridge) for vocal production.

"It was a different thought process with some of that and the idea was to spice it up and so we were happy with everything the way it turned out," Romanko said. "It was nice to have a little bit of flavor but with all of those familiar with the people we have worked with in the past."

Though the process may have been a bit different, the final result was what has tattooed Shadow's fall on the metal map, a blue collar blast of New England metal yell.

"We didn't set out with an agenda," Romanko said of "Retribution." "We tend to be a little more aggressive and that is reflected in the times and the pent up anger with the way that things are turning out for most folks."

While most bands are wimping around winter whining and looking for a cruise ship gig, Shadows Fall is going into the maw of the white, its first headlining Canadian tour that starts Wednesday, Feb., 24, in Calgary, Alberta.

"We play hockey so we're not afraid of the ice," Romanko said with a laugh. "This will be our first time on a full Canadian tour so it will be exciting, something we have been trying to find the time and the place to do for a while and it fell in place and we're pretty excited about it."

For tickets to the V Club show, call 304-552-7569 or go online at www.myspace.com/wvvclub and for VIP tickets are at http://tixx1.artistarena.com/shadowsfall.

The Herald-Dispatch

Shadows Fall

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