There are albums that are years old that I lose track of for one reason or another and forget about but then some sound or melody sparks my memory. I'll listen to the album, sometimes wondering how I was obsessed with it in the first place. But other times, I'm blown away all over again.

The Maccabees, a pretty well known band in the UK pretty well forgotten in the States, released their third album, Given to the Wild, in 2012. The album won NME's Best Album of the Year. It was listed as #15 in my Top 25 Albums of 2012, and now that I'm listening to it again, I think it deserved to have a higher ranking.

The album is an original. I can't think of any apt comparisons other than Bombay Bicycle Club's So Long See You Tomorrow (especially the atmospheric intro tracks that flow right into the second) sounding somewhat similar, but the BBC album pales in comparison.

This album is all about love - that which we follow, idealize, grab and grasp for, then take for granted and ultimately lose. Singer Orlando Weeks scolds a boy in "Glimmer," who appears to have a girl - "the whitest of your wave through them all" - yet the character sees past her and Weeks wonders: "With it all before you / how could it ever go wrong? / When water mirrors for you and all that you look on / just a glimmer from the way beyond / but you're lost today." He's blinded from what he has in front of him by a glimmer of hope that there's someone better out there. As they say, the grass is always greener...

In another song, "Ayla," Weeks continues that thought: "And we wait for love in the shape of us / until the wait is over under halcyon skies / until the wait is over for an innocent life." The perfect love he waits for is something he idealized in the past and waited for but then so much of his young innocent life slowly wasted away. "Slowly One" is one of the last tracks and Weeks wistfully remembers the love he had and the memories its imprinted on him. "In every quiet moment / in every little silence / every small reminder where you find her / with every light left on / let alone / Every little loving word said out of love / going cold."

Every track sounds like it could set the tone of an entire album yet they all flow in unison. There are powerful orchestrated tracks like "Unknown" and "Forever I've Known," somber ones like "Child," and even upbeat tracks like "Pelican" and "Ayla." Nobody else sounds like these guys, and this album provides so many avenues of their talents.