Architectural Genocide // Malignant Cognition // Album Review

They say don’t mess with Texas, and dam i wouldnt want to mess with the brutal force that is Architectural Genocide.

Formed in 2017 & hailing from the Houston area, Architectural Genocide’s brand of brutal death metal is something unspeakable. Mixing the slamming brutality of classic acts like Devourment & Suffocation with the dissonant sounds & song writing of Disgorge & Defeated Sanity.

Their last album, released five years ago, “Cordyceptic Anthropomorph”, was a fantastic debut album. Taking the underground death metal by the throat & with Comatose Music releasing the album, gave the band some great exposure.

Now with their sophomore follow-up, “Malignant Cognition” feels even more focused & sickening.

“Precursor To Bloodshed”, the album’s opener, is a great way to set the tone of the album. An instrumental intro soaked its eerie feel with news footage of different killers & homicides really evokes a great feeling, getting you deep into the album & ready for the brutality that is coming next…

With its first swing of the hammer to the skull, “Coercion into Carnality” is a chugging fever dream that is a non-stop tirade on the senses.

Drummer Nat Conner’s tone & sound captured on the album feel very raw & real, so the frantic blasting truly feels like getting blasted in the chest with a machine gun. The guitar tracking & tone from Tom Savage &

Caleb Baker is superb. It has the perfect low end, so the guitars hit in the slow palm mute slam sections, but have enough clarity in the fast sections where you won’t get lost in the riffs. Also, each moment of those dissenting pitches or chords the band adds to riffs is highlighted with both guitarists’ sounds.

A bludgeoning track “Trophies for My Murders” is an all out war in death metal form. This track has a great mix of catchy chugs, but great blasting & even some great two-step sections. It’s also a great showcase of vocalist Daniel Brockway’s skills. With some of the best low gutturals on the record, his performance on this track is absolutely shocking & sickening.

One of the standouts on the album “Decent Deranged” feels steeped in that old-school New York sound of Suffocation & Pyrexia. This one still has its twills & special moments, but it’s a straight-up brutality fest for the senses. Matt Day’s bass on this track sounds really thick but still hella punchy & gives the band a great backbone to keep the overall sound dense & really adds to the album’s mammoth sound.

“Malignant Cognition” isn’t a reinvention of the BDM genre, but what it has is superb songwriting & an overall cohesive sound, which most bands don’t take into consideration when creating an album.

Architectural Genocide crafts well though-out songs, that have great payoffs & deliver on what they promise. Keeping the listener engaged & they have been able to build on the effort from their last album to go even further with their brutality & masterfully crafted songs. It’s that good. I just wish it were a little longer with another track or two! It left me wanting more & i can’t wait to see what the band do with their next effort.

Review: Joseph Mitchell

Malignant Cognition Is Out Via Comatose Music On January 16th 2026