Howdy folks, it’s me, your local Nier stan, and today I’m looking at the recently released Nier Orchestral Arrangement Album Addendum! Two years ago, the Nier Orchestral Arrangement album was released, containing orchestral takes on songs from Nier Gestalt/Replicant and Nier Automata. Earlier this year, said album was being performed live around the world. Now, on the 10th anniversary of the Nier franchise, an Addendum will be released on April 3rd to introduce new mixes as well as to redo a few songs from the original orchestra album. Someone posted the soundtrack on YouTube, so I took a listen while I was at work. For conveniences sake going forward, this album will be referred to as Addendum and the first Nier will be referred to as Gestalt.

The original Nier orchestra album isn’t bad by any means, but I feel that it didn’t do some songs justice. How do I explain this? It feels like some songs focused too much on being an “orchestral version” while failing to carry the essence of the original songs. However, for the redone songs, Addendum manages to redo the songs to be more in line with the original songs while still carrying an orchestral flair.

Addendum starts things off strong with a new version of “Ashes of Dreams”, the credits song from Gestalt. The original orchestral version of the song was just an instrumental, lacking the powerful yet somber vocals that helped define the tone of the original song. The new Addendum version however, besides redoing the instrumentals, reintroduces vocals into the song. Emi Evans and J’Nique Nicole, contributing vocalists to the soundtracks of the Nier games, gives “Ashes of Dreams” the justice it deserves, giving the album a strong start.

This is a general thing that you’ll see throughout Addendum with regards to the redone songs. For instance, like the stronger start, the album closes with a redone version of “Weight of the World,” Automata‘s credits song. In fact, the collaborative vocals of Evans and Nicole makes it come off as the End of Yorha version of “Weight of the World”, the final variant of that theme, which provides Addendum a powerful ending.

The album then goes into “Emil”, the theme of my dear son. Initially, it’s a nice, instrumental mix of “Emil (Sacrifice)”. Halfway through though, the song transforms into a more dramatic, energized performance with vocals reflecting “Emil (Despair)” from Automata. It’s a really good switch up and I appreciate that Addendum chooses to embody multiple versions of his theme.

But Addendum doesn’t stop there. “Deep Crimson Foe”, a recurring boss theme from Gestalt, starts with a brief orchestral mix of “The Ultimate Weapon”. The new version of “Song of the Ancients” with vocals closer to the original songs, starts with the version of the song heard in Gestalt’s starting village before segueing into a surprisingly energetic performance of the Fate version heard near the endgame. These songs in particular and how they switch up feels like a love letter to Gestalt, and as someone that played it last year, I was utterly delighted to listen to them.

AHHHHHHH THE NIER ORCHESTRAL ARRANGEMENT ALBUM (Addendum) CAME IN EARLY

The comments in the booklet from Keiichi Okabe, Yoko Taro and Yosuke Saito were also translated ;w; pic.twitter.com/dihB03UTYf

— pktazn (@pktazn) March 24, 2020

The weakest part of the album was the new version of “Kaine”. It’s not bad per-se and in fact, I like it more than the first orchestral mix. However, it’s entirely instrumental, which feels lacking compared to the other songs. This is especially weird considering that the orchestra concert version actually broke into vocals that acted as a strong end to the Gestalt portion of the concert.

For the most part, Addendum is an excellent album and a must listen for Nier fans. Now, it does have one main problem and it’s that so far. like the original orchestral album it’s physical only and fairly pricey. I mean, is it not truly a theater-like experience without inaccessibility? I mean, you can just listen to it on YouTube, but actually owning a copy will be something that only dedicated fans will probably seek out.

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Nier Orchestral Arrangement Album - Addendum

$34.99

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Faithful recreations of songs from the Nier series
• Redone versions of Ashes of Dreams and Weight of the World makes for strong ends
• A lot of love for Gestalt/Replicant here

Cons

• Kaine's kinda eh
• Price and availability
• Personally wish there was a vocal mix of Shadowlord