Debut 12” from Phoenix, Arizona’s Memory Ward. 11 tracks of wild, searing hardcore punk recalling in equal parts the furious years of Italian Hardcore, the Touch and Go era of Midwest punk, and the psychedelic atmosphere of mid to late 80’s Japanese hardcore like Junk Schizo and Ikkashinju. Neither throwback nor distinctly of its era, Memory Ward are doing something unto themselves. Don’t take our word for it though…

“Anybody who hasn’t been paying attention to TOTAL PEACE’s little corner of Phoenix hardcore is in for a rude awakening. In 2024, they gave us a near-perfect D-beat release with YELLOWCAKE’s A Fragmented Truth EP, but the new year has arrived and it’s brought us… whatever the fuck this is.

Now, I had prepared to write up a whole salesman’s spiel about how MEMORY WARD touches all the walls for me—how it sounds like Wisconsin, 1983; Barcelona, 2009; or Torino, 1985. How it sounds like when you drop the needle on your DRUNKS WITH GUNS LP at 45 rpm by accident. Or how this record is what it would sound like if SPIKE IN VAIN did an entire 12” of MECHT MENSCH covers and T.V.O.R. released the whole mess.

And it does sound like those things—but it’s more than all of that, too. MEMORY WARD isn’t shy about their influences, but they’re not a retro act, either. This is a record that’s very much of its time. This is brain-damaged, sun-warped clatter that can only come from people living in the margins left to them by people like Sheriff Joe, Kari Lake, or Blake fucking Masters. This is the sound of wreckage and sprawl, of dead rivers and aquifers drained dry. This is the natural output of Wasteland, USA.

This is Arizona, 2025.” - Mark Masters 

• Format Type: 12"
• Genre: hardcore
• Year: 2025