Wizard rock and charity compilations go together like Snape and greasy hair. Over the past 8 years, the wizard rock community has released dozens of EPs and albums to help raise money for various organizations. One of the first comps to come out was the original Wizards and Muggles Rock for Social Justice, and last week brought us their highly-anticipated third installment.

Matt Maggiacomo has put together various albums, shows, and tours to help support the Harry Potter Alliance in a number of ways, and the HPA has always been a recipient of donations from the W&M releases, along with a second organization. With this third Wizards and Muggles release, Matt also wanted to help This Star Won’t Go Out, an organization familiar to wizard rockers and Nerdfighters alike whose worthwhile goal is to provide financial assistance to families who have children fighting cancer. Matt wants to raise $1000 for the HPA and TSWGO in the first week of sales, a goal album buyers are helping reach (and hopefully exceed) with every download. As of the publishing of this article, the compilation has almost reached the 55% mark of that total!

One of the absolute best aspects of a wrock compilation is that the listener is treated to a wide variety of great songs. Wizard rockers know how important raising money is, and they never fail to rise to the occasion in delivering some fantastic songs – and W&M3 is certainly no exception.

Listeners are treated to the return of Big Whompy and Lil’ Whompy on the album’s first track, the appropriately titled “Big Whompy’s Back”. N-TWYFE makes her wrock (er, wRap that is!) debut as well in a catchy tune that’s just slightly NSFW, but very fun to groove along to. Wrock pioneers Harry and the Potters drop in an older but unreleased piano-based tune that delivers the witty anti-Dursley lyrics fans have loved from the beginning with “Don’t Be a Dudley”.

Not to be outdone, Draco and the Malfoys make their triumphant return to wizard rock with another great Deathly Hallows inspired track “Who’s That Puffy Guy” that could have been on their fantastic “Family” EP. Keeping in with the slightly country/bluegrass feel, The Blibbering Humdingers recorded an updated version of their classic “I Lose Myself”, one of the absolute best meta-wrock songs guaranteed to give you all the feels.

The next two tracks, from muggles Hank Green and Jason Anderson, really make a great and interesting pairing as they both gave me Neil Young vibes. Hank’s acoustic tune “Video Game Books” is reminiscent of quieter, introspective Neil, while Jason’s loudly rocking track “This Will Never Be Our Town” wouldn’t sound out of place at all in a Crazy Horse playlist.

A song from the house elf’s perspective is always a great thing, and Siriusly Hazza P bring their lush vocal harmonies to “I Won’t Feed the Peacocks Anymore”. Then, to ramp things up even more, Amy Snow’s singing on Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons‘ “Lightening” is simply breathtaking, marking that track as one of the strongest on the album.

Next up is a Huffleriot, with Hufflepuffs Tonks and the Aurors and Justin Finch-Fletchley bringing some excellent songs to the album; the vocals on the TatA track “Yer A Wizard” are fantastic and guaranteed to get you singing along, and JFF delivers some of his amazing acoustic house show energy to “I Was Petrified”.

Carpe Geekdom brings the ukelele love to the album with their track “Superhero”, and Tianna and the Cliffhangers‘ “Briny Beach (featuring Katie Hall)” is a truly beautiful song featuring a fantastic duet. Alex Boyd‘s “You Are The Best Of Us” is a moving, well done song that starts off with a heartfelt dedication. The album is capped off by a rousing “Rise Above” from Hawthorn and Holly (although I’ll admit there was just a tiny bit of me that was disappointed it wasn’t a wizard rock cover of the Black Flag song by the same name!), which pays tribute to some of the memorable Harry Potter characters who touched us all, and the examples we can all learn from them.

For only $5, you simply cannot go wrong with Wizards and Muggles Rock For Social Justice: Volume 3. In fact, for 14 excellent wizard rock tracks helping raise money for great causes, I highly encourage you to consider paying even more for the album! $5 just doesn’t seem like enough for that amount of great songs all put together to help two amazing organizations. But even if you opt to buy the album at the face price, know that you’re going to be listening to some awesome new songs, and helping two very worthwhile organizations in the process.

Do you have W&M3? If you do, let us know your thoughts in the comments! We’d love to know which tracks are YOUR favorites.