TOUR

THERE IS NO MEMORY BIO

How much of our past do we carry with us into the present? And how much of it should (or shouldn’t) we leave behind? Those are the simple yet profound questions at the heart of There Is No Memory. The fifth full-length from Armor For Sleep—and the New Jersey outfit’s second record after a 15 year wait for its predecessor, 2022’s The Rain Museum—its songs force the listener to question the very nature of their existence, of what makes us the people we are. It does that because that’s precisely what Ben Jorgensen was doing while writing it. While The Rain Museum was a record written in the throes of the dissolution of the Armor For Sleep frontman’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.

“When you're going through a traumatic experience,” he says, “and are actually underwater in an event like that, 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. 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. Because by making so many demos, he was testing the limits of his computer, and he ended up pushing it too far.

“When I record demos at home, I'm not the best producer,” he admits. “I record like a hundred tracks at once and it's just not very efficient. So while working on these demos one day my computer crashed, but right before completely freezing it spit out an error message on screen that said: 'THERE IS NO MEMORY'.”

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.

“The error message meant I had filled up the RAM inside the computer,” he says. “It had nowhere left to store any new information and it needed a reboot. But in that moment, I felt like my computer was speaking directly to me... and that we were experiencing the same problem together. I too felt like I had no more room left to store any new information. I had this all-encompassing feeling like I had already been through so much, that I had already spent so many years in pain that I just didn’t have any more space for anything new. I also liked how the message seemed to have a dual meaning. Maybe my computer was trying to cheer me up. ‘Don’t worry about the things you’ve been through that are holding you back. The past is in the past, there is no memory—it’s only an illusion."

The process of rebooting his computer allowed Jorgensen not only to record the new music he’d been asking it to, but made him realize that he also needed a reboot. It was an epiphany that gave essential clarity and perspective about the album he was making. Because in some weird way, the two were actually linked.

“For me,” he says, “my reboot was dumping this information into an album to try and make sense of it all. Clearing my head of a lifetime of memories that I somehow needed to make peace with.”

That was the final piece of the puzzle that Jorgensen needed to finish the record. Initially, he’d only intended to make an EP, but when he and longtime drummer Nash Breen finished the first recording session with producer Sam Guaiana in Los Angeles in May of 2024, the songs kept flowing, and he realized he was tapping into a deeper well and that the project should be seen through as a full-length album. So after a summer tour with Anberlin, Hawthorne Heights and Thursday, Armor For Sleep reconvened with Guaiana to record what would become the album’s second half.

It's testament to the strength of the songwriting that There Is No Memory sounds entirely cohesive—as if it were always meant to be a full-length and as if it were recorded all in one session. From the moment the crackling, fizzing energy of “The Outer Ring” kicks it off all the way through to closer “All The Best”, you’re transported deep into the wormholes of Jorgensen’s memories and the multiple parallel worlds they create on this record. Yet as much as it’s a collection of individual memories, there’s also a narrative and thematic through-line. As the album progresses—via the bitter regret of “Breathe Again” ('If I could fold up time/Like a piece of paper/I would never have kissed you/This wouldn’t exist to ruin our lives’ he spits) and the urgent desperation of “In Another Dream”, the hopeless helplessness of “What A Beautiful World” and the unfettered emotional vulnerability of both “Ice On The Lake” and “Last Days”—the mood shifts. It might begin with self-flagellating hostility, but it ends—with the hushed, heart-torn “All The Best”—in a place of quiet acceptance and peace.

Indeed, 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. ‘Isn’t it odd the way/We can give our lives to someone else/And mean nothing to them one day?’ Jorgensen sings on that final song, a line as brutal as it is beautiful and which captures the contradictions that underline this collection of songs.

“It's an exploration of me wondering how much of my life is controlled by what I've been through, and trying to unpack all sorts of different memories, whether they're from relationships I've been through, betrayals, addictions, friends I’ve lost along the way. It's me wondering if I am just the collective sum of all the things I’ve lived through or if there is a me underneath it all who can still choose his own fate.”

To some extent, then, the past exists alongside the present on this record, which adds another layer of meaning to the title—there is no memory, because it still exists in the current moment. Its hold is inextricable and ineluctable, representing a life simultaneously empty yet also full of everything that’s led up to this point in time.

“Why does it seem that all of these memories from my past, remnants of long-gone experiences,hold so much power over who I am?” asks Jorgensen.

That’s what this album attempts to answer. The irony, of course, is that as it does so, Armor For Sleep are moving confidently and steadily ahead. They could very well rest on their legacy, as the recent anniversary tour of their second record What To Do When You Are Dead easily proved. But that’s not what Jorgensen wants. And so Armor For Sleep are forging into the future—even if it’s memories from the great beyond that are taking them there.