ARMOR FOR SLEEP RELEASE NEW ALBUM 'THERE IS NO MEMORY' + SHARE VIDEO FOR "LAST DAYS"
New Jersey post-hardcore band Armor For Sleep are excited to announce the release of There Is No Memory, their brand new studio album out today via Equal Vision Records/Civilians. Earlier this week they also announced their return to Australia next April, joining Hawthorne Heights as main support on the If Only You Were Lonely Tour. Tickets on sale now via Destroy All Lines.
Recorded with Sam Guaiana (Silverstein, The Devil Wears Prada, Between You and Me), There Is No Memory is a collection of songs that force the listener to question the very nature of their existence, of what makes us the people we are. While 2022’s The Rain Museum was a record written in the throes of the dissolution of the Armor For Sleep frontman Ben Jorgensen’s eight-year marriage and his subsequent divorce, its setting was more fictional and metaphorical. By comparison, There Is No Memory is much more literal, much more grounded in the real world, and much closer to the bone.
Additionally, Armor For Sleep release the music video for “Last Days,” the latest single to be lifted from There Is No Memory, today. "This song is about imagining an ex as an old lady on her deathbed and wondering if she will evaluate her life and think what would have been if we had stayed together,” Jorgensen says. “In the song I’m fighting with myself by saying ‘I know I shouldn’t care anymore’, but admitting that there is a part of me that still does and always will care. The chorus is ‘maybe there’s a part of me that’s lost inside a reflection of a memory’. I struggled for a long time after this particular bad breakup obsessing over the details of what went wrong. This song is me admitting that to myself. It all leads up to a big admission at the end of the song: ‘I would sell my soul not to care anymore’.”
“When you're going through a traumatic experience — and are actually underwater in an event such as a divorce — it’s very difficult to have any kind of perspective on anything other than that one thing that's consuming all aspects of your life,” Armor For Sleep’s Ben Jorgensen said. “‘The Rain Museum’ was written right after I went through this crazy life event. For this one, in contrast, I'm higher off that waterline, and I have a broader perspective now. I’ve been taking stock of my life as a whole, and so I found myself thinking and writing about the strange experience of memories and the power they have over all facets of who I am."
If that statement doesn’t give it away, one listen to this record will. There Is No Memory is actually punctuated by it — it’s an album steeped in life (and lives) lived, in recollections of the past, in the absence of what once was, in the lacuna brought on by the memories of what had been. Jorgensen is well aware of the irony of the title, but it’s an intentional part of the record’s narrative. He knew he wanted to write an album about memories, and while he was demoing the tracks at home, something happened that felt, if not quite like fate, then at least like it was connected to what he was writing about.
“While working on these demos one day, my computer crashed. But right before completely freezing, it spit out an error message on the screen that said: 'THERE IS NO MEMORY',” he recalls. Initially, Jorgensen’s reaction was philosophical with a hint of despair. But then it made him think even more deeply about the record he was trying to write.
Each song is its own poignant and pointed reminder that — however vague, however unreliable, however distant — memories can contain as much, if not more, power than the person, place or feeling that they’re echoes of. In fact, they can haunt us, control us, and change the way we think, act and feel, not just in the present moment but for the rest of our lives.
There Is No Memory by Armor For Sleep is out now via Equal Vision/Civilians.
TRACK LISTING
01. The Outer Ring
02. Breathe Again
03. In Another Dream
04. I’d Set Fire
05. Maybe The Sky Will Break
06. What A Beautiful World
07. A Sky Full Of Black Holes
08. Ice On The Lake
09. Always Daylight
10. Last Days
11. All The Best
