When the Brazilian speed band released the album Holy Land, the rumour went around sating that it was some kind of master piece filled with orchestral arrangements and percussion. Especially all the percussion work, is absolutely fabulous.

The first track of the album is a classical choir piece written by G.P da Palestrina (1525-1594), arranged by Matos. In fact all the choir arrangements on Holy Land are by Matos. Classicaly trained as he is, he surely knows how to do it. Anyway, "Crossing" starts out as a calm nature experience. Then when the choir is done, it starts raining and a segue to "Nothing To Say" comes. The heavy guitars starts pounding the riff, and off they go. They've begun with what is one of the best tracks of the album. Other great ones are "Carolina IV", which is a 10 minute long epic, "Make Believe", "Z.I.T.O", "Deep Blue" and "Lullaby For Lucifer". The last mentioned is really just a short acoustic thing that sounds like André Matos on the beach with a few seagulls. Very beautiful piece written by Louriero and Bittencourt.

The opinion of this album are quite shared, but most of them I know think that Holy Land is a great album. It took a while for me to like it though.