Armor For Sleep – The Rain Museum LP (Equal Vision Records / Rude Records)

It took seventeen years for Ben Jorgensen to finish The Rain Museum, a conceptual album by Armor For Sleep. The album was supposed to serve as a continuation of What To Do When You Are Dead, their excellent full-length release from 2005, but many circumstances forced the band to postpone the album and go on an indefinite hiatus. However, Jorgensen started working on the idea once again in 2020. In the meantime, he got divorced, so those events also motivated him to work harder on the new material. The Rain Museum is a conceptual full-length built around a post-apocalyptic world, where weather no longer exists on planet earth, and people come to a mysterious museum in the middle of the desert to look back on what life used to be like before. It’s an excellent concept that has great potential to become a possible script for a movie or series, but let’s stick to the album first.

Some readers might think some heavier music genres would apply much better to this concept, but Armor For Sleep were always fully aware of their abilities, and their confidence and creativity are vividly hearable on this material. Perhaps this band solely relies upon emo and indie sound, but you’ll unquestionably hear some heavier elements implemented in each song. The band included some of the best properties of post-hardcore and post-rock music and infused them into the foundations of this material. The Rain Museum sounds even better because of these experimentations with several complementary music genres, and you won’t find any weak moments while listening to this excellent record. The album unquestionably sounds like it was recorded in recent years. Perhaps Jorgensen and the remainder of the band worked on the initial concept, ideas, song structures, and arrangements back in 2005 and recorded everything during the pandemic. Many details point that out. If that’s not the case, then the sound engineer/producer did a tremendous job producing and mastering this material.

It’s a shame the band waited for so long to launch this material. The emo crowd would consider this material an instant classic a couple of decades ago, and I hope the contemporary emo scene will appreciate the brilliance of this band nowadays. The Rain Museum is stacked with Jorgensen’s incredible vocal abilities, cleverly assembled chord progressions, heavy post-hardcore riffs, warm-sounding low-end tones, and powerful rhythmic sequences. It’s nearly mindblowing how these chord progressions burst with that soothing, relaxing, cathartic shoegaze, post-rock, post-hardcore ambiance, but The Rain Museum still sounds like an excellent emo album composed by experienced musicians. Each song contains that cathartic atmosphere that appeals to the listening apparatus, so you’ll enjoy this record even if you’re not into the beforementioned genres. The Rain Museum is a comprehensive amalgam built upon soothing emo, indie, and post-hardcore numbers capable of melting your heart. Head to Equal Vision or Rude Records for more information about ordering this emo gem.