Here at PG, us editors are constantly (and willingly) submerged in the currents of new music. As a result, we may be highly at risk of fancying ourselves worldly eclectics, with ears attuned to what makes an artist singular or innovative. Of course, it can in fact be those artists that seem the most deserving of year-end recognition, but on the other hand, we do simply enjoy celebrating the music we like, and even love. And so, the following is a collection of our individual picks of the music that came out in 2023 that we liked, loved, and admired the most.
Luke Ottenhof - Assistant Editor
Fust - Genevieve
Genevieve came to me late in the year by way of a dear friend, and quickly raced to the top of my most-listened-to this year. The opening track, also the title track, is sawdust-flaked alt-country perfection—vocalist Aaron Dowdy’s gentle drawl is so pleasantly unremarkable and everyman-ish. Like “Genevieve,” “Trouble” and “Violent Jubilee” are just brilliantly drawn songs that somehow hang around for just the right amount of time. Few bands have the skills and intuition to interpret decades of influences and write tracks that still feel vital and compelling. As Genevieve evidences, Fust has both in spades.
Must-hear tracks: “Genevieve,” “Trouble,” “Violent Jubilee”
The Dirty Nil - Free Rein to Passions
It’s a big, loud, fun-as-hell punk-rock record. The Dundas, Ontario trio just keep turning out record after record of delightful, gnarly riffs and huge hooks. Free Rein to Passions brings a sharp thematic juxtaposition to that formula: Frontman Luke Bentham bounces between youthful anarchy (“Blowing Up Shit in the Woods,” “Stupid Jobs”) and grown-up nihilism (“Atomize Me,” “The Light, the Void, and Everything”). What’s it all mean? Bentham, Les Paul squealing through a Plexi stack, has an answer: “Shut up, baby: nothing at all.”
Must-hear tracks: “Blowing Up Shit in the Woods,” “Stupid Jobs,” “Atomize Me”
Shane Ghostkeeper - Songs for My People
Calgary’s Shane Ghostkeeper put out a thrilling indie-rock record with his band Ghostkeeper last year, then followed it with an equally exciting full-length of country music that two-steps handsomely between old-time honky-tonk arrangements and chemically altered psychedelic. The playing is sharp and the composition is just adventurous enough, but Songs for My People’s strongest asset is Ghostkeeper’s storytelling, like on “Hunger Strike,” sung from the point of view of his grandfather, who starved himself to death to be reunited with his wife. It sounds bleak, but through Ghostkeeper, it’s beautiful stuff: “Get yourself dolled up, honey I’m coming up!” he hollers on a celebratory, boot-scootin’ refrain.
Must-hear tracks: "Hunger Strike," "I Know How," "One More Name"
MSPAINT - Post-American
Hattiesburg, Mississippi’s MSPAINT is one of America’s most compelling acts, and one of 2023’s best success stories. Post-American, the band’s debut record, feels like Rage Against the Machine for a new generation: a brutal, confrontational, extremely activated smash-up of post-punk, new wave, dance, rap, and suddenly back-in-style ’90s alt-rock. But where Rage’s operative emotion was, well, rage, MSPAINT’s disgust with the world is balanced with earnest, desperate pleas for hope and joy and softness at the end of the empire: “I, I, I just wanna, wanna feel more alive,” vocalist Deedee bellows on the instant-classic chorus of “Delete It.”
Must-hear tracks: "Delete It," "Hardwired," "Flowers from Concrete"
Kate Koenig - Managing Editor
L’Rain - I Killed Your Dog
The meaning of “progressive” in music changes every day, and what might be objectively innovative can often arguably be more entertaining cerebrally than it is artistically. With I Killed Your Dog, multi-instrumentalist songwriter L’Rain has composed something that both fits the vanguard qualifier and proudly defies that pitfall. Carried by gentle vocals and amorphous, oceanic synthesizers, and touched at times by phrases and bursts of clean and distorted guitars, the album’s summed acoustic throughline is a fresh path through the realm of experimental music. And honestly, I love every beat of it. Shoutout to my dear engineer friend, Kevin Ramsay, who from what I can tell is legally required to recommend gold and only gold, for pointing me in its direction.
Must-hear tracks: “I Killed Your Dog,” “r(EMOTE),” “Uncertainty Principle”
feeble little horse - Girl with Fish
The art that is loved by young people, that which inspires those to whom the elation of discovery is the most abundant and accessible, is not just felt deeply in a state both liminal and ephemeral, but is integral to the culture of every space they occupy. In other words, I’m really glad that my 17-year-old former guitar student told me about Girl with Fish. Mostly, I find this lo-fi-bedroom-grunge-twee record comforting. It’s just music that I like, and it’s good to hear more of that. You’ll hear beds of distortion that provide a space for vocalist Lydia Slocum’s words to rest—words sung with a voice that sounds like it’s carefully trying to pick up a kitten, but also like it belongs to a friend who gives great advice. There are some subtle chiptune synths and others that sound like modulating wind-up toys, and even a bit of screaming. All of it adds up to feeble little horse’s intricately assembled lo-fi finesse.
Must-hear tracks: “Tin Man,” “Slide,” “Healing”
Bernie Worrell, Cindy Blackman Santana, John King - Spherical
Instrumental funk/blues is a far cry from the sounds I normally gravitate towards, so I implore you to take this recommendation seriously when I say this record pulled me in, whipped me around, and set me back down with a new haircut and somebody else’s irises. Featuring the late Bernie Worrell of Parliament Funkadelic on Hammond B3, Clavinet, and Mini-Moog, Cindy Blackman Santana on drums, and John King on electric guitar, the utter trips heard on Spherical were tracked in 1994 and unearthed by King from a box of old CDs and cassette tapes 29 years later. So, let’s all write King a thank-you note? Because from the intergalactic “Unfunkingstoppable” to the triumphant “Sonny’s Hand,” these grooves will squeeze you through an astral Rubik’s Cube, and you won’t even have to beg.
Must-hear tracks: “Stomp-time Shuffle,” “Auguries,” “Sonny’s Hand”
2024 Wish List
Hey, wish granted! Sleater-Kinney’s Little Rope is coming out in January. But on an entirely different note, where is Fleet Foxes and what are they doing? Excuse me, Robin, but please reroute your Shore Tour ’24 and make me a new album. Would also be cool to hear something fresh from BROCKHAMPTON.
Ted Drozdowski - Editorial Director
Anthony Pirog - The Nepenthe Series Vol. 1
Anthony Pirog is one of the most versatile, imaginative guitarists alive. His stage performances are thrilling and his recordings range from raging to sublime—whether with the Messthetics and Five Times Surprise, in a Tele tag team paying tribute to Danny Gatton (the Spellcasters’ 2019 album Music from the Anacostia Delta), or in interstellar overdrive—which is the mood often caught on this album. These eight duets and a solo piece are a primer in contemporary creative guitar, matching Pirog with Nels Cline, John Frusciante, Andy Summers, Brandon Ross, Wendy Eisenberg, and other cutting-edge 6-stringers, as well as the cellist Janel Leppin. These reverb-and-delay-soaked soundscapes travel from soothing to chilling, and offer an extraordinary education in the use of time-based and modulation effects, evoking the late master Sonny Sharrock’s quest to “find a way for the terror and the beauty to live together in one song.” Here, they are also breathing in sync.
Must-hear tracks: “Ripples,” with Nels Cline; “Aurora,” with John Frusciante; “Inflorescence,” with Andy Summers; “Glowing Gestures,” with Janel Leppin; and “Cirrus,” with Brandon Ross.Buddy and Julie Miller - In the Throes
Buddy Miller has been one of my favorite guitarists for nearly two decades, conjuring delightful and often unpredictable tones behind a wealth of artists, from Emmylou Harris to Alison Krauss and Robert Plant to Levon Helm, Elvis Costello, and dozens more, as well as on his own solo recordings. But some of this most entrancing work has been with his wife, Julie, who is as distinctive a singer and songwriter as they come. Their latest album is an example of the kind of magic that occurs when two artists who love each other also share the love of music. It’s delightful, warm, wholehearted, and, at times, wholeheartedly odd in a good, playful way. Gospel, romance, truth-telling, and raw strangeness power their collaboration, and through it all Buddy’s guitars are proof that roots music needn’t be tame or predictable to be authentic, and authentically brilliant.
Must-hear tracks: “I’ve Been Around,” “In the Throes,” “The Painkillers Ain’t Workin’,” and “The Last Bridge You Will Cross.”
PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year Dying
Set in Dorset, a coastal region in southwest England, this song cycle is inspired by Polly Jean Harvey’s book-length poem, Orlam, about a young girl coming of age in a rural world that’s part countryside idyll and part hallucinogenic space warp. The colorful animism and local dialect inject elements of charm and wonder into Polly Jean’s folk-rock arrangements. This album is more a vision of the artist as a storyteller than rock idol‚ although she’s certainly still both, and, as such, seems full of refreshed inspiration. And while her longtime collaborator John Parish is on board, so is musical auteur Flood, who shepherds the samples, loops, field recordings, and noises that widen the album’s sonic palette, enhancing its otherworldly atmosphere. If this sounds intriguing, or if you already love this album, watch the October 2023 PJ Harvey concert from the Olympia, in Paris, on YouTube to see its artful live performance.
Must-hear tracks: “Lwonesome Tonight,” “I Inside the Old I Dying“ (check out the video, below), “All Souls,” and “A Child’s Question, July.”
mssv - Human Reaction
In 2021, I took a deep dive into Mike Baggetta’s music and emerged inspired and charged by his flexibility and range as a player and composer—and, even more so, by his unpredictability and his tonal sensibility. He is an outstanding improviser steeped in jazz, but I think of his playing with mssv as rock—albeit wild-ass rock, with no limits. And mssv is a true underground supergroup, which also includes legendary bassist Mike Watt, of the Minutemen and fIREHOSE, and drummer Stephen Hodges, whose playing with Tom Waits, Mavis Staples, T Bone Burnett, and even David Lynch has made him a legend among the cognoscenti of “thump.” Hearing Baggetta shred and get funky on the title track is a glorious thing, and throughout, he and his comrades create a ferocious blend of the dissonant, the howling, and the mysterious. Check out our soon-to-be-posted Rig Rundown with Baggetta and Watt, from a recent concert at the Blue Room at Nashville’s Third Man Records complex.
Must-hear tracks: “Human Reaction,” “Baby Ghost (from the 1900s),” “Junk Haiku,” and “In This Moment.”
Margo Cooper - Deep Inside the Blues
Okay, this is a book, so I’m cheating a little, but any serious fan of post World War II Mississippi blues will want this. Documentary photographer and journalist Margo Cooper has collected 34 of her longform-profile interviews of blues artists—almost all with literal as well as stylistic Magnolia State roots—and 160 gorgeous, richly detailed photographs in this very high quality coffee-table-sized edition. Every artist here was making vital contributions to culture during your lifetime, so there’s no whiff of the musty vault about this work. And many, of course, are still making music and other art of a high order. If you’d like to learn, deeply, about the sounds and lives of Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, Sam Carr, Cedric Burnside, Little Joe Ayers, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson, Eden Brent, T-Model Ford, Robert “Bilbo” Walker, Super Chikan, and more—and increase your knowledge and appreciation of African American and blues culture—this is the place.
2024 Wish List
Please, Tom Waits … please make another album so this wish doesn't have to top my most-anticipated list every year! Otherwise, I sure wanna hear Sleater-Kinney’s Little Rope, Chelsea Wolf’s She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She, the Bevis Frond’s Focus on Nature, the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Glasgow Eyes, and the new ones from the Messthetics and Adrianne Lenker.
Jason Shadrick - Associate Editor
Dave Barnes - Featherbrained Wealth Motel
I always find it rewarding to be able to listen to an album and pick out elements that I know came from other artists I love. It’s full-circle listening. Dave Barnes took an entire year off of listening to music not made by the Beatles and created an album that is rooted in his pop-folk style, but retains a Liverpudlian heart. The layered production is a sonic puzzle that is begging to be unwrapped. Admittedly, there aren’t many 6-string pyrotechnics on display, but the sheer mastery of songcraft can open your ears to the fact that blazing, warp-speed pentatonics are sometimes the furthest thing from what a song needs.
Must-hear tracks: “The Girl with the Weight of the World on Her Shoulders,” “Miss Deconstruction”
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds - Council Skies
Another year spent waiting for the (inevitable?) Oasis reunion. As a kid that grew up learning guitar in the mid ’90s, I admired how Noel Gallagher crafted simple riffs that moved stadiums full of people. Council Skies is likely Noel’s best work as a solo artist, with well-crafted guitar parts that are more memorable than impressive—which is a good thing. “Pretty Boy” is an anthemic show starter and “Open the Door, See What You Find” is an incredible ode to Abbey Road-era Beatles arrangements. Maybe I’m going through a middle-age Beatles renaissance myself, but I think this collection of tunes balances incredible songwriting with a sense of melodicism that even the greats rarely encounter. Still waiting for the brothers Gallagher to rock again.
Must-hear tracks: “Pretty Boy,” “Easy Now”
John Scofield - Uncle John’s Band
He finally used the most appropriate jam band pun possible, and I’m glad he waited. Ever since his collaboration with Medeski, Martin & Wood, Scofield has flirted around the edges of the jam band world. Although the title of this album might lead you to believe that he’s gone full Garcia, this collection of originals and expertly chosen covers demonstrates that some guitarists just thrive in a trio setting. The freedom that rips through “TV Band” and “The Girlfriend Chord” is classic Sco’: tone that just breaks up enough combined with propelling lines that skirt through the changes. Another mention needs to go to his longtime timekeeper, Bill Stewart, who keeps the time pulsing without ever getting in the way. And the lone Grateful Dead cover does make me wish for an entire Dead album from Scofield. Maybe just an EP?
Must-hear tracks: “Uncle John’s Band,” “TV Band,” “The Girlfriend Chord”
2024 Wish List
An Oasis reunion. A new Fleet Foxes album. A live Julian Lage album. More albums with tube amps.
Nick Millevoi - Senior Editor
Mighty Glad – Self-titled
Mighty Glad was formed out of the collaboration between pedal-steel/guitar conjurer Rocco DeLuca and vocalist/organist Johnny Shepherd, both of whom were central characters on Daniel Lanois’ 2021 space-dub-gospel record, Heavy Sun. That album remains one of my favorites of this decade, and I’ve been seeing Instagram clips of this new ensemble in the time since. Now on record, Mighty Glad lives up to my hopes. At its most essential, Mighty Glad is a soulful, dramatic vocal record with patient, nuanced, and delicate instrumental support. On these mostly slow, dynamic songs, it can feel as though the ensemble is fine-tuned to some deep psychic wavelength, making every note feel essential. Mighty Glad demands repeated listening and consideration to fully absorb its lessons, of which I’m sure there will be more for me to glean for quite some time.
Must-hear tracks: “All the Way,” “I’ll Keep the Light,” “Send Me a Message”
Daniel Villarreal – Lados B
At the height of the pandemic, drummer/percussionist Daniel Villarreal gathered guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Anna Butterss for a two-day outdoor recording session. On Lados B, the trio reflect the fresh air and Los Angeles sunshine with laidback spontaneity on this set of loose, earthy grooves.
The record’s nine tracks point in a lot of directions—toward soul jazz, pan-Latin rhythms, Afrobeat, and more—but ultimately the trio create their own sonic argot. It’s a group record, for sure, but Parker’s playing offers a masterclass in how to take simple lines to unexpected, singular melodic places while staying deep in the pocket. The spry chemistry of these three masterful instrumental personalities and the nice weather combined makes Lados B a standout example of creative funk. Here’s hoping there’s more to come from this trio.
Must-hear tracks: “Traveling With,” “Sunset Cliffs,” “Salute”Florry – The Holey Bible
Florry is my favorite rock ’n’ roll band going today. Guitarist and singer/songwriter Francie Medosch’s songs are raw, direct, often witty, and clever. In Florry, she’s assembled a band that includes a front line of pedal steel and fiddle—along with her incisive Tele playing—to deliver her twangy tunes with country-rock flair. But as much as The Holey Bible—or the year’s best-named EP, Sweet Guitar Solos—might draw quick comparisons to a ragged, Stray Gators-era Neil Young, the band is energized by punk-rock abandon. Nothing is calculated. Nothing is overwrought. Nothing is slick. It’s pure vibe. Wearing their gritty Philadelphia-brewed attitudes on their sleeves, Florry throws caution to the wind and simply rocks.
Must-hear tracks: “Drunk and High,” “Take My Heart,” “Cowgirl in a Ditch”
Charles Saufley - Gear Editor
MV & EE - Green Ark
In a year of pop bloat and A.I. barf, I predictably gravitated toward a lot of homebrew jams. The land of DIY needs no royalty, of course. But if I were to nominate two ambassadors, Matt Valentine and Erika Elder would serve as well as any. On their diplomatic visits to distant planets, land masses, and undersea and sky cities, they wouldn’t have to talk much. They could merely play the assemblage (vortex?) of echo, fuzz, electric Indian instruments, wah, synth, and slow-swirl phase of Green Ark while sharing some local hospitality. I’m confident any beings or entities on the receiving end would be impressed with the industrious, resourceful, and cosmic potential of our species and spare us any bother. I suspect fellow humans, too, will find much inspiration in this platter of earthy, spectral barn dub.
Must-hear track: “Livin’ it Up”
PAINT - Loss for Words
PAINT is Pedrum Siadatian, who is better known as the lead guitarist in L.A.’s Allah-Las. Where the Las are often an elegant, streamlined, party-at-its-champagne-flowing-peak affair, Loss for Words is a fractured, rumpled, foggy, pre-hangover walk home just before dawn—all caught on handheld VHS and stapled together in Godard-on-molasses jump cuts. Though it’s a loosely constructed, largely untethered, and deeply modest record, the tunes here aren’t really chill-out jams. A solitary sort of ill-at-ease mood permeates many of these pieces. Soundtracking a dark, solitary drive down broad, near-empty boulevards with only shuffling deep-night creatures for company, Loss for Words could stand in for a scrambled car-radio scan of the quadruple-post-modern airwaves.
Must-hear tracks: “Paris 2020” “Rousseau’s Lament”
EBS BassIQ Blue Label Triple Envelope Filter Pedal
The EBS BassIQ produces sounds ranging from classic auto-wah effects to spaced-out "Funkadelic" and synth-bass sounds. It is for everyone looking for a fun, fat-sounding, and responsive envelope filter that reacts to how you play in a musical way.
Overall, they encompass the historic arc of stompbox technology from fuzz and overdrives, to loopers and samplers, to tools that warp the audio end of the space-time continuum. Click on each one to get the full review as well as audio and video demos.
DigiTech JamMan Solo HD Review
Maybe every guitarist’s first pedal should be a looper. There are few more engaging ways to learn than playing along to your own ideas—or programmed rhythms, for that matter, which are a component of the new DigiTech JamMan Solo HD’s makeup. Beyond practicing, though, the Solo HD facilitates creation and fuels the rush that comes from instant composition and arrangement or jamming with a very like-minded partner in a two-man band.
Click here to read the review.
Warm Audio Warm Bender Review
In his excellent videoFuzz Detective, my former Premier Guitar colleague and pedal designer Joe Gore put forth the proposition that theSola Sound Tone Bender MkII marked the birth of metal. TakeWarm Audio’s Warm Bender for a spin and it’s easy to hear what he means. It’s nasty and it’s heavy—electrically awake with the high-mid buzz you associate with mid-’60s psych-punk, but supported with bottom-end ballast that can knock you flat (which may be where the metal bit comes in).
Click here to read the review.
Walrus Monumental Harmonic Stereo Tremolo Review
Among fellow psychedelic music-making chums in the ’90s, few tools were quite as essential as a Boss PN-2 Tremolo Pan. Few of us had two amplifiers with which we could make use of one. But if you could borrow an amp, you could make even the lamest riff sound mind-bending.
Click here to read the review.
MXR Layers Review
It’s unclear whether the unfortunate term “shoegaze” was coined to describe a certain English indie subculture’s proclivity for staring at pedals, or their sometimes embarrassed-at-performing demeanor. The MXR Layers will, no doubt, find favor among players that might make up this sect, as well as other ambience-oriented stylists. But it will probably leave players of all stripes staring floorward, too, at least while they learn the ropes with this addictive mashup of delay, modulation, harmonizer, and sustain effects.
Click here to read the review.
Wampler Mofetta Review
Wampler’s new Mofetta is a riff on Ibanez’s MT10 Mostortion, a long-ago discontinued pedal that’s now an in-demand cult classic. If you look at online listings for the MT10, you’ll see that asking prices have climbed up to $1k in extreme cases.
Click here to read the review.
Catalinbread StarCrash Fuzz Review
Although inspired by the classic Fuzz Face, this stomp brings more to the hair-growth game with wide-ranging bias and low-cut controls.
Red Panda Radius Review
Intrepid knob-tweakers can blend between ring mod and frequency shifting and shoot for the stars.
Electro-Harmonix LPB-3 Linear Power Booster and EQ Review
Descended from the first Electro-Harmonix pedal ever released, the LPB-1 Linear Power Booster, the new LPB-3 has come a long way from the simple, one-knob unit in a folded-metal enclosure that plugged straight into your amplifier. Now living in Electro-Harmonix’s compact Nano chassis, the LPB-3 Linear Power Booster and EQ boasts six control knobs, two switches, and more gain than ever before.
JFX Pedals Deluxe Modulation Ensemble Review
This four-in-one effects box is a one-stop shop for Frusciante fans, but it’s also loaded with classic-rock swagger.
Origin Effects Cali76 FET Review
The latest version of this popular boutique pedal adds improved metering and increased headroom for a more organic sound.
JAM Fuzz Phrase Si Review
Everyone has records and artists they indelibly associate with a specific stompbox. But if the subject is the silicon Fuzz Face, my first thought is always of David Gilmour and the Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii film. What you hear in Live at Pompeii is probably shaped by a little studio sweetening. Even still, the fuzz you hear in “Echoes” and “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”—well, that is how a fuzz blaring through a wall of WEM cabinets in an ancient amphitheater should sound, like the sky shredded by the wail of banshees.
Fishman EchoBack Mini Delay Review
As someone who was primarily an acoustic guitarist for the first 16 out of 17 years that I’ve been playing, I’m relatively new to the pedal game. That’s not saying I’m new to effects—I’ve employed a squadron of them generously on acoustic tracks in post-production, but rarely in performance. But I’m discovering that a pedalboard, particularly for my acoustic, offers the amenities and comforts of the hobbit hole I dream of architecting for myself one day in the distant future.
RJM Full English Programmable Overdrive Review
Programmability and preset storage aren’t generally concerns for the average overdrive user. But if expansive digital control for true analog drive pedals becomes commonplace, it will be because pedals like the Full English Programmable Overdrive from RJM Music Technology make it fun and musically satisfying.
Strymon BigSky MX Review
Strymon calls the BigSky MX pedal “one reverb to rule them all.” Yep, that’s a riff on something we’ve heard before, but in this case it might be hard to argue. In updating what was already one of the market’s most comprehensive and versatile reverbs, Strymon has created a reverb pedal that will take some players a lifetime to fully explore. That process is likely to be tons of fun, too.
JHS Hard Drive Review
JHS makes many great and varied overdrive stomps. Their Pack Rat is a staple on one of my boards, and I can personally attest to the quality of their builds. The new Hard Drive has been in the works since as far back as 2016, when Josh Scott and his staff were finishing off workdays by jamming on ’90s hard rock riffs.
Keeley I Get Around Review
A highly controllable, mid-priced rotary speaker simulator inspired by the Beach Boys that nails the essential character of a Leslie—in stereo.
Cusack Project 34 Selenium Rectifier Pre/Drive
The term “selenium rectifier” might be Greek to most guitarists, but if it rings a bell with any vintage-amp enthusiasts that’s likely because you pulled one of these green, sugar-cube-sized components out of your amp’s tube-biasing network to replace it with a silicon diode.
Vox Real McCoy VRM-1 Review
Some pedals are more fun than others. And on the fun spectrum, a new Vox wah is like getting a bike for Christmas. There’s gleaming chrome. It comes in a cool vinyl pouch that’s hipper than a stocking. Put the pedal on the floor and you feel the freedom of a marauding BMX delinquent off the leash, or a funk dandy cool-stepping through the hot New York City summertime. It’s musical motion. It’s one of the most stylish effects ever built. A good one will be among the coolest-sounding, too.
Or you can check out the Reverend Billy Corgan Drop Z. At a glance, the Drop Z may not look like much of a cure for the 6-string doldrums. But pick it up and you’ll feel the difference fast. The Drop Z is built around a 26 1/4" scale and a 24-fret neck that makes this Reverend feel like a very different instrument. Designed and optimized for use with drop tunings, it opens the doors to whole palace ballrooms full of new musical possibilities.
Beastly Blue and Easy To Use
If the feel of the Drop Z alone doesn’t dislodge you from a guitar rut, there’s a good chance that its pretty profile would compel you to pick it up and play. It’s a handsome instrument. The conservatively chambered alder body (it’s routed at the bass and treble horns) is clad in a very pretty twilight-blue-meets-ocean-turquoise glossy finish, which is complimented perfectly by the brushed-aluminum pickguard. The chambered body definitely helps with the weight; the Drop Z is a little less than eight pounds. It also helps the guitar feel very balanced. There’s not a hint of neck dive. And if it weren’t for the discernibly longer stretch you make to reach the first fret, it would feel as familiar and comfortable as a nice Stratocaster.
The medium-oval neck, which is satin-finished maple with a maple fretboard, is a pleasure. It feels substantial and fast, and getting around its expanse is facilitated by a perfect setup. The 12" fretboard radius and jumbo frets also add to the Drop Z’s easy-breezy feel. Big bends require little more effort than they would on a normal scale, and I never felt the urge to squeeze a note to compensate for the weird intonation issues big frets and long scales can cause. From first fret to 24th, playing the Drop Z is an easy glide.
The Drop-Z pickups are a modified version of the Railhammer Billy Corgan Z-One pickups in his other Billy Corgan signature Reverends. The pickups’ impedance is rated at 14.5 ohms, which suggests a pretty hot unit. In this incarnation, the Z-One pickups are tuned for even more output and smoother treble. That’s a good idea for a pickup designed with heavy musical settings in mind.
Fangs on Cue, but Mellon Collie, Too
Though the Drop Z is easy to play in a getting-around-the-fretboard sense, plugging and turning up may take adjustments in approach and attitude. As the pickups’ impedance rating suggests, the Railhammer Z-Ones have a lot of hop, and as the expansive lengths of string resonate impressively, you’ll hear a lot of very present treble overtones. I spent most of my time with the instrument in a C# modal tuning or C–G–D–G–B–B, and in each tuning the Drop Z rumbled impressively (particularly through a late-’60s Fender Bassman head, which is a beautiful, burly match for this instrument). But unless I wanted to linger among the peaky resonances of the highest two strings (and I often did), I needed to attenuate both tone controls.
The good thing is that each of these controls has a very nice range. And while the guitar can start to feel stripped of its essence with too much tone or volume attenuation, there is wiggle room for softening transients and taming unwanted overtone blooms. These pronounced peaks are easy to hear in both the neck and bridge pickup, depending on your approach. I worked a lot more with open strings and drones than Billy Corgan might on songs like “Zero,” which the guitar was tailored for. But for those keen to explore the mellower side of the Drop Z’s personality, the combined pickup setting is a magic bullet. It’s airy, open, and makes it easy and rewarding to navigate slow-moving chord changes with strong bass foundations. It’s also fun to take advantage of the fretboard’s whole expanse in this setting—darting and dashing from toppy treble-note clusters to growling bass harmony notes—and enjoying the detail and string-to-string balance. By the way, the Drop Z, as you might guess, sounds positively massive with distortion, though you should be careful to choose your gain device carefully. The pickup’s midrange emphasis will make a similarly mid-heavy distortion sound harsh. A Sovtek-style Big Muff, with its scooped midrange and round low-end resonance, is an ideal fit if you want to get extra large.
The Verdict
The Korea-made Drop Z is a beautifully crafted instrument and a silky, easy, balanced player that will make you forget, in moments, about the expansive fretboard and extra scale length. It feels completely natural and effortless. How you relate to the tones here will depend on your musical mission. The hot pickups make it a perfect fit for outsized, aggressive tones. I, for one, would prefer to explore the wealth of overtones this well-constructed instrument generates via less aggressive pickups. But players like me will still find much to love in the combined pickup settings and the pickups’ impressive capacity for detail, which, depending on the tuning you use, can highlight harmonic interplay between notes and chords that would be much less prominent and less fun to explore in a more conventional guitar.
Reverend Billy Corgan Drop Z Signature Electric Guitar - Pearl White
Loopers can be complex enough to make beginners cry. They are fun if you have time to venture for whole weeks down a rabbit hole. But a looper that bridges the functionality and ease-of-use gap between the simplest and most maniacal ones can be a sweet spot for newbies and seasoned performers both. The JamMan Solo HD lives squarely in that zone. It also offers super-high sound quality and storage options, and capacity that would fit the needs of most pros—all in a stomp just millimeters larger than a Boss pedal.
Fast Out of the Blocks
Assuming you’ve used some kind of rudimentary looper before, there’s pretty decent odds you’ll sort out the basic functionality of this one with a couple of exploratory clicks of the footswitch. That’s unless you’ve failed to turn down the rhythm-level knob, in which case you’ll be scrambling for the quick start guide to figure out why there is a drum machine blaring from your amp. The Solo HD comes loaded with rhythm tracks that are actually really fun to use and invaluable for practice. In the course of casually exploring these, I found them engaging and vibey enough to be lured into crafting expansive dub reggae jams, thrashing punk riffs, and lo-fi cumbias. Removing these tracks from a given loop is just a matter of turning the rhythm volume to zero. You can also create your own guide rhythms with various percussion sounds.
Backing tracks aside, creating loops on the Solo HD involves a common single-click-to-record, double-click-to-stop footswitch sequence. Recording an overdub takes another single click, and you hold the footswitch down to erase a loop. Storing a loop requires a simple press-and-hold of the store switch. The sizable latching footswitch, which looks and feels quite like those on Boss pedals, is forgiving and accurate. This has always been a strength of JamMan loopers, and though I’m not completely certain why, it means I screw up the timing of my loops a lot less.
Many players will be satisfied with how easy this functionality is and explore little more of the Solo HD’s capabilities. And why not? The storage capacity—up to 35 minutes of loops and 10 minutes for individual loops—is enough that you can craft a minor prog-rock suite from these humble beginnings. Depending on how economical your loops are, you can use all or most of the 200 available memory locations built into the Solo HD. But you can also add another 200 with an SD/SDHC card.Deeper into Dubs
Loopers have always been more than performance and practice tools for me. I have old multitrack demos that still live in the memory banks of my oldest loopers. And just as with any demos, the sounds you create with the Solo HD may be tough to top or duplicate, which can mean a loop becomes the foundation of a whole recorded song. The Solo HD’s tempo and reverse features, which can completely mutate a loop, make this situation even more likely. The tempo function raises or lowers the BPM without changing the pitch of the loop. As a practice tool, this is invaluable for learning a solo at a slower clip. But drastically altered tempos can also help create entirely new moods for a musical passage without altering a favorite key to sing or play in. Some of these alterations reveal riffs and hooks within riffs and hooks, from which I would happily build a whole finished work. The reverse function is similarly inspiring and a source of unusual textures that can be the foundation for a more complex piece.
HD, of course, stands for high definition. And the Solo HD’s capacity for accurate, dense, and detail-rich stacks of loops means you can build complex musical weaves highlighting the interaction between overtones or timbre differences among other effects in your chain. I can’t remember the last time I felt like a looper’s audio resolution was really lacking. But the improved quality here lends itself to using the Solo HD as a song-arranging tool—and, again, as a recording asset, if you want a looped idea to form the backbone of a recording.
The Verdict
With a looper, smooth workflow is everything. And though it takes practice and some concentration in the early going to extract the most from the Solo HD’s substantial feature set, it is, ultimately, a very intuitive instrument that will not just smooth the use of loops in performance, but extend and enhance its ability as a right-brain-oriented driver of composition and creation.
