CARCASS — Heartwork (review)

CARCASS — Heartwork album cover Album · 1993 · Melodic Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
ssmarcus
Carcass is one of the greatest and most important death metal bands in history. And this reputation could reasonably rest entirely on this specific record alone!

Death metal started in the 80s in Tampa Bay Florida as a form of thrash with harsher vocals and lyrics with gory imagery. There was also the related grindcore scene which took its main inspiration from hardcore but also indulged the gory grotesque imagery and brutal growling characteristic of death metal. The music emerging from these scenes was all about shock value: violence, gore, and aggression for its own sake (musically and lyrically).Artistic merit came, in my opinion, at a premium.

In the 90s, death metal spawned two offshoots: technical death metal, primarily in North America, and melodic death metal, primarily in Sweden. Melodic death metal is characterized by the same brutal vocals and down-tuned or extended range guitars of death metal but the riffs actually take inspiring from classic metal like Iron Maiden and Sabbath. As a genre, it transcended the mere shock value of death and grindcore and actually focused on songcraft.

Carcass, who actually happen to be from the UK, started off making grotesque grindcore music but eventually "sold out" and created one of the first, best, and most important melodic death metal records of all time. Obviously, Carcass' old school grindcore fans hated Heartwork, at least initially. But it is indeed what catapulted Carcass to their current metal god status. It is not exaggeration to point out that the sound on this record is basically the standard for extreme but "accessible" metal till today.

As far as songs go, "This Mortal Coil" has the strongest Maiden influence. "Embodiment " was the first song I heard from the record and is absolutely one of its best. The best track has to be "Arbeit Meicht Fleisch". Its an unapologetically ambitious song that combines everything about Carcass that makes them great.

Personally, this was the first extreme metal record I ever listened to and I was more or less hooked right away. The mix of groove, technicality, melody, and, of course, anger and brutality were like a drug for an angsty 14 year old teenager. I have not been the same person ever since...
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