To date, the "Volkslied" album series has been an outright weird mix of vocal tracks. The concept is to take instrumental tracks from previous Atelier games (including the Mana-Khemia titles) and add vocals. Sometimes the result is fantastic. Often, the result is mediocre.

In the case of Volkslied 3, there are some truly enjoyable tracks. Even those tracks with little flaws, well, the flaws can be forgiven because the music has some outstanding quality to it. In the case of "Paradisaea," the outstanding qualities are the rhythmic Latino sound and the "fun" sound behind it. For "Argentium Astrum," the electric guitar wins the day. This sounds like a JDK Band track. In fact, add the vocalist, and it sounds like a track from "Songs of Zemeth" (the Ys VI vocal album). That's certainly not a bad thing to be compared to!

There are some definite stinkers. "GBMB" is one of these sugar-pop-rock tracks: gives me a headache! And "Kodama" was a bit of a letdown.

Do I have a favorite track? Yes, yes I do. "Voice From the Depth," track 7. One of the slowest tracks on the album, and absolutely touching. This is the kind of song I'd expect to find on the Ar tonelico "hymmnos" albums, which have out-and-out surpassed the quality of the Volkslied albums for as long as both album types have existed. But this one track is able to get on par with the whole of the Ar tonelico vocal base.

If you've been keeping up with the Atelier series music, no reason to stop now! If you haven't picked up any of the Volkslied albums and are considering picking one up, I'd rank this one higher than the other two, not because it's consistent (it's not) but because there are a few "star" tracks that you'll not easily forget.

Reviewed by: Patrick Gann