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Connecticut's Autumns Eyes is at it again with the new, all-instrumental album Broken Leaves and Haunted Streets. As always, this one-man band, the brain-child of Dan Mitchell, focuses on all things scary, creepy and downright frightening. Broken Leaves and Haunted Streets consists of songs Mitchell first conjured from his nightmares in the early days of Autumns Eyes and he's decided it's time for them to be released on an unsuspecting public. I'm certainly glad he did, because this stuff is damn good. Creating an instrumental song that captures a listener's attention and keeps it for 3-4 minutes is one thing, but you'll be wondering where all 13 minutes and 46 seconds of "Lucid Empathy" went when it is over. Mood and atmosphere abound with the skillful use of keyboards and effects but the Metal is not forgotten. Mitchell rips off some wicked riffs and soulful solos all the while keeping the pace moving along. Autumns Eyes never sounds quite the same and this new album sounds very different from the purely Gothic Metal Please Deceive Me or the Death Metal of Surrender the Fire. Listening to Broken Leaves and Haunted Streets is like listening to the coolest Gothic/Power Metal horror movie soundtrack you'll ever hear. The keyboards evoke images of the victim desperately searching for a way out of the haunted house while the guitars signify the moment the killer leaps from the shadows and draws the knife across the victim's neck...

I continue to be impressed by Autumns Eyes with every release. Broken Leaves and Haunted Streets is sure to be spinning in my CD player for a while, especially when Halloween rolls around.