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.