Italian electro-industrial duo Synapsyche present a harsh, forbidding sound full of pain and fear, which was lapped up by the club kids and led to a deal with leading scene label Alfa-Matrix for their third album, 2019's In Praise of Folly. Synapsyche was founded in 2008 in Ferrara, Italy by Stefano "Mannequinetik" Rossi, a composer and songwriter who was looking to form an electro-industrial project inspired by his favorite EBM acts, and looking for a vocalist. At length he found Marco "Katatronik" Mantovani, a talented singer who had performed in both melodic rock and death metal bands and who could sing both the clean and harsh vocals that Rossi was looking for. Initially viewing the project as a fun diversion, they later got serious and started sending out demos. Their first published track was in 2012 on a Gothic World Records compilation. The following year they self-released their debut EP "Wait/Hate," and in 2014 their first full-length album Crashdown Connected. Their sound was gritty, harsh, and pounding, but had a firm sense of melody, and lyrics inspired by the vanity and folly of the human condition. In 2015 they signed with the Russian label SkyQode, which released the EP "Hate and Psyche," and their second album The Abyss Effect in 2016. Gradually making their way up the record industry food chain, in 2018 they moved to Belgian label Alfa-Matrix, one of the leading firms in the electro-industrial scene, which had previously released one of their tracks on its popular Endzeit Bunkertracks compilation series. Their debut album for the label was the well-received In Praise of Folly in 2019, which was teased by the EP "Mirror Terror" and boasted their biggest studio budget to date, resulting in a much slicker and more polished sound. ~ John D. Buchanan