Uber Axe

If your jaw drops when you see and hear Guthrie Govan play then prepare for your wallet to open for his latest guitar

- Dave Burrluck

Part of the Fender empire since 2002, Charvel’s reputation was founded by making custom guitars for great players. It’s currently signature home to Warren DeMartini, Joe Duplantier, Jake E. Lee and our own Guthrie Govan, who’s first signature model appeared in 2014 after two years of development.

Earlier this year two Charvel Guthrie Govan Signature models were announced with virtually identical features and price, the difference lying primarily in their woods. It means the full title of our reviewed model is the, deep breath, Charvel Guthrie Govan Signature HSH, Caramelized Ash, Caramelized Flame Maple Fingerboard, Natural – the other being the Charvel Guthrie Govan Signature HSH Flame Maple, Caramelized Flame Maple Fingerboard, Natural. Bonkers. But name length aside there’s nothing bonkers about the guitars: our caramelized ash body model is up there with the finest bolt-ons we’ve ever played. How so?

Unlike the basswood/flame maple top version, the construction here is intended to have a bit more character, at least tonally. The body is two-piece, centred joined ‘caramelized’ ash (yet another word for torrefied timber), which with its thin lacquer finish shows off the bold wavy-striped grain. It doesn’t appear to be grain filled and is hugely textured.

The similarly caramelized maple neck has a bold striped figure on the back that’s only slightly milder on the separate fingerboard. It certainly adopts a thin depth flat ‘C’ and if the spec sheet didn’t tell is it was coated with a hand-rubbed urethane gel we’d suspect it was oiled. Under that fingerboard, however, are dual graphite rods – to increase stability – and, of course, there’s a two-way adjustable truss rod with body-end wheel adjustment.