The Sound of Your Heartbeat is a pleasingly full on rock song. Sure there's a little bit of angst in there, but there are also big fat riffs, guitar solos (remember those? - it's been a while), and some lovingly bellowed backing vocals. The opening five seconds really throws you off centre, setting you up to expect a hardcore assault before developing into something that sounds like an indie band who've suddenly discovered Iron Maiden and The Exploited. If that sounds like an awful proposition, then rest assured Fortune Favours have found a way to make it work. On this evidence you would have to expect them to be one hell of a live band as they play with such an irrepressible exuberance and vigour.

B Side Underneath The Lights shows a slightly more melodic side to the band. It finds them treading a similar, if considerably heavier path to Hard Fi. This in itself is no bad thing, but when a band expresses an appreciation for the joi de vivre of Motley Crue, and has a vocalist who calls himself "Pistol" Pete Hurley then we can't help but be more impressed with their more aggressive output.

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end of year feature musicOMH's 50 Best Albums Of 2009 From the nearly 700 albums we reviewed this year, which did our writers love the most? Introduction 50-41 | 40-31 | 30-21 20-11 | 10-4 | 1-3