Huanastone – Son Of Juno

by Mark 'Yeti' Richard · February 26, 2025

Huanastone is a stoner rock band from Malmö, Sweden. Formed in 2012, the band’s sound is a combination of heavy 70’s rock, 90’s grunge, and classic desert riff rock. Their releases includes 2016’s Huanastone EP, 2017’s Second Stone, 2020’s Third Stone From The Sun, 2021’s Live At Plan B, and their latest 2024’s Son Of Juno. Huanastone has self released all of their records thus far and Son Of Juno came out on May 24th 2024. The album contains seven tracks at forty four minutes long. The band consists of Tobias Amaru Gonzalez Contardo on vocals and guitar, Victor Hansson on drums, Filip Larsson on bass, and Harald Nordén on guitar.

“…And Then Came The Sun” begins the album with a heavy dose of blues infused stoner rock. The first thing that really struck me was the excellent vocals performed by Tobias Amaru Gonzalez Contardo. His voice is captivating right from the start and has a very emotive presence to them. The music has an illuminating fusion of fuzzy hard rocking riffs and a heavy bass driven groove. The drums are kept purposefully simple on this track to accommodate the flow of the song. It’s a great introduction to the album and gets everything moving for what comes thereafter. The title track “Son Of Juno” is next and totally rips! It begins with a nice fuzzy guitar riff that fades in some snare drumming build up. Everything else joins in right after in a heavy cascade of stoner doom. The bluesy guitar tones are excellent along with the leads. Musically, the band explore heavy to light dynamics with a concoction of Pink Floyd style psychedelic leads and textures. The vocals are as enthralling as the first track and draws you in right from the beginning. However, it’s after the initial four minutes that the music itself expresses and conveys the sound for the remainder of the song. Brilliant twists of blues and psych ascending into intimate harmonies and transitions.

The third track “Love In Black Tar” has a rocking groove encapsulated by Contardo’s enchanting voice. The song distills a grungy rhythmic tone with a seventies inclination about it. However, the next song called “Black Rain” showcases Contardo’s vocal prowess like nothing else. The music is laid back in execution which allows the vocals to resonate and soar with emotion and exuberance. The beautiful clean guitars and subtle crescendos of heaviness allow the singing to express a charismatic enchantment of allure. Coupled with some seductive guitar leads, “Black Rain” is fascinating and compelling. “Gaea” begins with lush clean guitars that shift into a nice warm bass line, expressed with strumming guitars and nice percussion. The softness of the song is the perfect vehicle for the vocals to make its presence felt. Huanastone are exquisite on capitalizing with a variety of styles and sounds. “Gaea” fathoms this musical notion with distinctive sounds of comprehension.

“If I Had A Head” returns to a more riff rocking formula. The hi-hat and bass begins the song and the guitar leads color in the melodies with beauty and grace. The drums provide a powerful foundation of rhythmic cleansing to the track allowing the vocals to convey and demonstrate their charm. The sound is somewhere between grunge and desert rock with textures of psychedelia and blues mixed in. The last song on Son Of Juno is an eight minute instrumental called “Red Dunes”. It’s a fantastic song full of cool desert jams and musical dynamics that showcase the talents of the musicians without the reliance of the powerful vocals. Huanastone creates an elegant sound of sonically pleasing riffs and fiery guitar leads that ebb and flow nicely throughout the track.

Son of Juno is my first experience with this excellent band from Sweden. It’s hard to believe that I have not heard about them until recently and that they are not signed to any record labels. Huanastone is a fantastic band that I will be following up on and listening to all of their back catalog.