Chris Misenti can pinpoint the exact moment when he knew his band Balmora was onto something special — and that moment was accompanied not by a breakdown or riff, but by a mournful piano line.
It was July 1st, 2023, a few months after the Connecticut straight-edge metalcore crew dropped their debut EP, With Thorns of Glass and Petals of Grief, and his band had gotten invited to open for beatdown hardcore royalty Never Ending Game in Long Island. That cosign was surreal enough for the singer. But Misenti’s realization struck him when Balmora’s set began and a recording of “From Creaking Branches, Dead Leaves Released” — the foreboding instrumental piano piece that opens the EP — washed over the audience. “People were just, like, absolutely fucking it up to the piano intro,” Misenti exclaims, still sounding surprised by the crowd’s reaction.
“We were [already] like, ‘Oh shit, people really fuck with this,’” he adds of their music’s grassroots popularity. “And that was like, ‘OK, and they’re serious about it too.’”
It makes sense that a band like Balmora have had metalcore fans losing their minds from the jump. The five-piece are clearly worshippers of a very specific vein of late ’90s and early Aughts melodic metalcore, including bands like North Carolina’s Prayer for Cleansing and Undying and Buffalo’s It Dies Today; and their sound is marked by intense dual-guitar riffs, melancholic downtempo sections and slammy breakdown parts. Their meticulous devotion to those influences, combined with the visceral hardcore spirit behind it, makes Balmora incredibly easy to root for.
“We try to do a perfect balance of pretty and melodic riffs, mixed with the heaviest kinda slam possible for the dance floor,” Misenti says. “Whether it’s sad or triumphant or angry, there’s some sort of full emotion behind every part of it.” Balmora always aim to inspire an emotional reaction to their live shows, and they get it.
That’s why, while still fairly new to the road, they’ve become hardcore fest fixtures having already appeared at FYA, LDB and Tied Down this year. “Playing FYA at 11:45 in the morning and looking out into the crowd of like 1,000 people and half of them are just full-on beating the shit out of each other — that’s why we write the stuff the way that we do,” says the singer.
Misenti was born in Connecticut, and aside from a three-month stint living with a girlfriend in Montreal, he’s been there his whole life. He was raised by a single mom, from whom he says he gets “a lot of my tenacity, being headstrong and [the attitude of] if I want something, I set out to do it.” His dad had issues with drugs and alcohol, leading Misenti to commit to sobriety from a young age. “I never wanted to be anything like him, or even have the chance, so I never got into drinking,” he says. Once he discovered hardcore — after a kid at his middle school sent him a Have Heart album — it wasn’t long before he naturally adopted a straight-edge identity. (All five members of Balmora are edge to this day.)
Misenti started going to hardcore shows in Connecticut around 2017, and soon befriended the members of the powerviolence band Kidnapped. At the time, most of the shows were at a DIY spot called the Crunch House, which was “the size of a closet,” he says. Misenti started booking his own shows, too, and eventually founded the Ephyra record label, which has released music by a bunch of stellar metalcore and hardcore bands from Connecticut and beyond (xNOMADx, Deal With God, Cauldron).
It wasn’t until 2022 that Misenti started Balmora, his first real band. Their distinctive, nostalgic sound developed organically during the writing process for With Thorns of Glass and Petals of Grief, after they brought onboard guitarist Jay Torblaa, whose complex tremolo riffs fell right into place. This year, they followed the EP with Six Pacts Etched in Blood, an excellent split with Texas metalcore brethren Since My Beloved.
For the vocalist, Balmora’s whole mission is deeply rooted in the hardcore tenants of collaboration and lifting up friends. “What I look forward to the most about doing fests or tours is just hanging out with all these friends and making new ones,” he says.
Balmora aren’t shy about repping their hometown scene, either. “We love Connecticut — we put on for Connecticut,” Misenti emphasizes. “Having pride in your scene is so important. I hear a lot of people that aren’t from Connecticut say, in a condescending manner, ‘Well, what’s even there? … Connecticut is just like a highway between New York and Boston.’”
Misenti’s response to the scoffers? “Come to a show. If you’re in the hardcore scene and you haven’t been to Connecticut and are unsure about it, come here and go to a show. See the energy of the crowd, see the people dancing. That’s Connecticut.”
Balmora are heading out across the U.S. on their first full tours this summer, and they’re in the early stages of writing a debut LP that’s sure to plant them firmer still on the national hardcore map. If their story so far is any indication, they’ll be bringing that intensity everywhere they go.