Santos & Pecadores formed in 1987 in Cascais, Portugal, as a Portuguese pop/rock group whose lineup has long featured Olavo Bilac on vocals, Rui Martins on guitar, Pedro Almeida on guitar, Pascoal Simões on keyboards, Artur Santos on bass, and Pedro Cunha on drums. Their first album, Onde Estás?, arrived in 1995 through BMG and immediately established them as hit-makers, yielding the singles “Não Voltarei a Ser Fiel” and “Não Voltarei a Ser Fiel,” the second of which, a ballad, connected especially strongly with audiences. The band sustained that momentum across the next several years with Love? (1996), Voar (1999), and Horas de Prazer (2001), each generating its own successful tracks. Those earlier singles, together with three new recordings—“Ondas,” “Um por Todos,” and “Perdas”—were gathered on the 2003 compilation Os Primeiros 10 Anos. Five years later the group returned with its fifth studio album overall, Acção-Reacção (2006), followed by the online-only live acoustic set Livre Trânsito (2008) and the retrospective Caixa dos Segredos (2009). Energia, released in 2010, marked their sixth full-length studio effort and reached the national Top Ten, albeit after another lengthy interval between projects.
