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Carcass - Heartwork review




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Reviewer:
9.2

1161 users:
8.82
Band: Carcass
Album: Heartwork
Style: Melodic death metal
Release date: October 1993


Disc I [CD]
01. Buried Dreams
02. Carnal Forge
03. No Love Lost
04. Heartwork
05. Embodiment
06. This Mortal Coil
07. Arbeit Macht Fleisch
08. Blind Bleeding The Blind
09. Doctrinal Expletives
10. Death Certificate
11. This Is Your Life [bonus]

Disc II [2008 re-release bonus DVD]
The Pathologist's Report - Part IV
01. Lyrical Inspiration & Themes
02. Parr Street Studios
03. Colin Richardson As Producer
04. H.R. Giger
05. Where Your Hearts Still Into The Work?
06. Touring The Album
07. Veggies & Vegans
08. The Importance Of Mike
09. Mike's Departure
10. Arbeit Macht Fleisch

Classic Monster of Earache Records! Highly Recommended

Some say Heartwork is the last good album that carcass made in their career, well sure it isn't the great symphonies of sickness, but it has some good highlights hidden that most people don't ever hear or refuses to hear.


To begin with, the vocals in the entire CD are quite different from the other Carcass albums, here Walker screams more than he growls (in fact since Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious the vocals were a lot more different), it sounds a lot like Chuck's voice from the band Death, but not in a bad way, the vocals are fine and Walker knows how to give the album a great environment.


The lyrics are no longer about virulent diseases or rotting corpses, so in this album there are no genitals grinded and no anal tracts vomited of any kind. The lyrics here are more about images than stories, it is the case of Arbeit Mach Fleisch and No Love Lost, most of the lyrics have philosophical matter in a Carcass kind of way, and mainly all the lyrics are about avant-garde art like Heartwork "Works of art, painted black?A canvas to paint, to degenerate". The artwork is excellent, the cover art design was in charge of H.R. Giger the creator of the monsters in all the Alien movies, so you get the idea.


Now about the music, the leads in the guitar section are overwhelming, Steer and Amott make some incredible riffs and complex leads in some songs, the drums and the bass are not what we were used to, in some songs the drumming is killer and in others it's just standard with typical rhythm, the same thing for the bass; yes this is the main reason why people called this The First Melodic Death Metal Album. The best song in the album in my opinion is Arbeit Mach Fleisch, this song is Remarkable here all the instruments have something good to highlight, the riffs and leads, the drums, the vocals and bass are astonishing, not to mention that it is the strongest song in the album, so this may be THE song on this album, Blind Bleeding The Blind, Buried Dreams and No Love Lost are also overwhelming songs maybe because this are the only songs where the music was entirely written by Steer without Amott's influence, who knows?


A good album merit to be listened, not the best Carcass's Work (though it can be the best for some people, including the band members themselves) but sure it's high-quality and some songs are amazingly well played and recorded, the production is very good I didn't found any mixing flaws and the sound is exceptionally clean. So here it is, Heartwork people..buy it, you don't need more reasons.


Rating breakdown
Performance: 9
Songwriting: 9
Originality: 10
Production: 9

Written by Herzebeth | 09.07.2004




Comments

Comments: 15   Visited by: 277 users
03.02.2007 - 02:34
Cthulhu
Account deleted
I more or less agree with this review, this isn't quite as good as the flawlessly brilliant "Necroticism", but it is still very, very good. My only gripe with this review is that it doesn't mention the absolutley brilliant song "Carnal Forge", which is surely one of the best technical death metal songs ever recorded. In addition, they may be melodic but it isn't the lame uninspired style of music that modern "melodeath" stuff tends to be, this fits more with good technical death like Death or Psycroptic. 9/10
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04.02.2007 - 21:44
Rating: 9
Sunioj

I give credit to this album to be one of the first melodeath albums I ever owned. Arbeit macht Frei, Carnal Forge, and this mortal coil are my favorite picks. The ammott prime if you ask me.
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27.02.2007 - 02:59
Putrid_Cadaver
Account deleted
I Really like this album, but i could only give respect to it if it was another band, not Carcass.
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27.02.2007 - 21:50
Rating: 10
Jason W.
Razorbliss
This is only Carcass CD I ever listen to, and it certainly was ahead of its time. The production on this album is pristine yet abrasive. I do think Necroticism is equally as great, but, for fans of more melody, this is the best Carcass album IMO
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"After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Aldous Huxley
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22.07.2007 - 07:13
Rating: 10
HELLilac

This is by far the bast melo-death album to date and it's released when the sub-genre wasn't even born.
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AS SOON AS YOU'RE BORN, YOU'RE DYING..
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22.07.2007 - 07:52
Rating: 9
Arian Totalis
The Philosopher
Yeah this is a really good review, even though it was posted over three years ago.
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"For the Coward there is no Life
For the hero there is No Death"
-Kakita Toshimoko

"The Philosopher, you know so much about nothing at all." _Chuck Schuldiner.
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24.08.2007 - 20:10
DigitalGrind
Account deleted
Definetly the best album from crazy fuckers Carcass.
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20.03.2008 - 07:10
Uirapuru
Liver Failure
Wow.. i was almost given to ''Necroticism'' the title of best Carcass album, after hearing the medium Swansong, but this one stole the prize hehe
Great album, ''Carnal Forge'', ''Heatwork'', ''Doctrinal Expletives'' and ''Arbeit Macht Fleisch'' are my favorite tracks.
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member of the true crusade against old school heavy metal, early 80s thrash, NWOBHM, traditional doom, first and second wave black metal, old school death metal, US power metal, 70s prog rock and atmospheric doomsludgestoner. o/
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12.12.2008 - 09:53
Rating: 9
Entropic Silence

Love this album. "Blind Bleeding The Blind," "No Love Lost" and "Embodiment" are my picks. Still like Necroticism more though.
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VICTORY!!!!! (They love it in France)
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26.03.2009 - 19:51
Rating: 10
Deadmeat
Necrobutcher
Great album!!!! great!!! what i like most on it it is the drumming and the really clean production!!! I will listen now to Necrotism as it is a shame that i have not till now...
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Υou've sold your human essence to the cold world of dead and empty things... You're SOLD!
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18.10.2009 - 15:15
Rating: 10
Hermann Langke
Brahmastra Corps
This is a death metal masterpiece
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08.04.2010 - 15:53
Rating: 9
Andresopeth

This album is very good, i love the way they change what they were doing, maybe they got bored of writing songs and songs about bodies dismembered and virulences and rotting sick corpses. And think about it, wouldn't be boring if they kept writing about the same topic forever? so they had an evolution (a goog one) that brings them into this album. Songs are brutal, very fast ones, with a solid structure and an excellent production maybe the best production they did the album sounds Loud and Clear, guitars still impressive. I didn't like the voice that much, in this aspect i prefered the old one, but this one is still good.

A good album to buy: Carnal Forge and Heartwork are amazing. But i guess Carnal Forge is that song really have something more!
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04.12.2010 - 05:53
Rating: 9
Guib
Thrash Talker
Carcass simply rules no matter what or how they play -_-
... Everything is said Heartwork is GREAT.
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- Headbanging with mostly clogged arteries to that stuff -
Guib's List Of Essential Albums
- Also Thrash Paradise
Thrash Here
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27.12.2011 - 02:16
Rating: 6
@gent_-_orange

I dont like this album very much I am afraid. To me it comes off as boring and overproduced. IMO Symphonies era was the real Carcass.
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15.09.2017 - 09:20
Rating: 9
metalriff

Wtf was that with "sounds like Chuck's voice but not in a bad way"? Chuck's voice cannot be compared and is brilliant in every way. Not saying the vocals here are bad...they're actually good. Great riffs in the album with memorable songs.
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1001 Metal albums to hear before you die
https://metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=6531
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