Heartwork is the fourth studio album by English extreme metal band Carcass.

[9] Heartwork has been described as the band's "breakthrough" and "mid-period masterpiece", as well as a landmark album in melodic death metal.

The video for the title track features a real-life interpretation of the sculpture, including a human welded as a part of it.

Guitarist Michael Amott left the band after the recording of the album before founding Spiritual Beggars, and was temporarily replaced by Mike Hickey.

According to Johnny Loftus of AllMusic, the music on the album "grafts melody onto the existing muscle of Carcass' punishing antimusic."

"[26][27] Hank Schteamer of Pitchfork described Heartwork as Carcass's "mid-period masterpiece," and praised the album as being "perhaps the greatest example to date of an extreme-metal band nodding to the polish and swagger of above-ground rock while retaining their core ferocity.

"[10] Johnny Loftus called the album the band's "breakthrough release" on AllMusic, and suggested that while "some purists might decry its melodic breaks for soloing or nods toward conventional structure[,] Heartwork is that rare album that so carefully dissects and reconstructs its original form that its additional body parts seem like they were there all along.

[31] Additionally, the album's influence has been observed in the works of Arsis, The Black Dahlia Murder, Arch Enemy and Angela Gossow.