Polyphia have announced a world tour, for which the modern virtuosos will be bringing some of the finest guitar talent on the scene with them.

The boundary-pushing band, led by Tim Henson and Scott LePage, have just put out their new house-music-gone-heavy track, CAN YOU FEEL IT, the first single from what will be their fifth studio album. They’ll soon be hitting the road to promote it.

They'll be joined by some of the biggest names in guitar playing with them. Australian prog-fusion maestro Plini and Intervals – the djent- and prog-metal-coded project from Wolfgang Van Halen’s favorite shredder, Aaron Marshall – will feature on select North American dates.

Plini has just released his latest album, An Unnameable a Desire, which sees him responding to a call of the wild as he explores new stylistic frontiers, and Intervals are fresh off the road supporting Karnivool.

Elsewhere, solo guitarist RJ Pasin – CAN YOU FEEL IT's do-producer, who has a similarly genre-defying style mixing metalcore, hyper pop, and electronic music – will play on all dates across North America, Europe, and the UK.

Ladrones, who use eight-string Strandberg guitars to mesh together metal, hip-hop, and regional Mexican music, are another act impressing Polyphia’s guitarists, and they’ll join for all North American dates.

It’s an assembled lineup that will stand as both a celebration of forward-thinking guitar playing, featuring some of the most innovative players around. But it’s also a tour that will kick-start a new era for Polyphia.

CAN YOU FEEL IT, which sees the band creating a wholly new style of music, has got the guitar community’s tongues wagging and sets the scene for their hotly anticipated new album.

They’ve already confirmed a host of guest stars. Henson’s new favorite guitar player is producing the record, which they’ve promised will be heavy.

French electronic genius, Perturbator, meanwhile, will join RJ Pasin on all European and UK dates as the band seemingly doubles down on the electronic party-music side of their evolving sound.

Tickets for the tour will be available starting with VIP and Artist Presales beginning Tuesday, June 16, at 11 am ET / 4 pm BST.

Additional presales will run throughout the week ahead of the general on-sale beginning Friday, June 19, at 10 am local time.

See Polyphia for more.

North America Tour Dates w/ Ladrones & RJ Pasin

> w/ Intervals
< w/ Plini

• Sept 5 – Dallas, TX – South Side Ballroom
• Sept 8 – Albuquerque, NM – Revel Entertainment Center
• Sept 10 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
• Sept 12 – Anaheim, CA – House of Blues
• Sept 13 – San Francisco, CA – The Masonic
• Sept 16 – Salt Lake City – The Union Event Center
• Sept 18 – Denver, CO – JUNKYARD
• Sept 20 - Waukee, IA – Vibrant Music Hall
• Sept 21 – Milwaukee, WI – Landmark Credit Union Live
• Sept 22 – Minneapolis, MN – The Armory
• Sept 24 – Chesterfield, MO – The Factory
• Sept 25 – Chicago, IL – Aragon Ballroom
• Sept 26 – Detroit, MI – The Fillmore
• Sept 28 – Grand Rapids, MI – GLC Live at 20 Monroe
• Sept 29 – Toronto, ON – Great Canadian Casino >
• Oct 1 – Montreal, QC – L’Olympia >
• Oct 3 – Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway
• Oct 5 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount
• Oct 7 – Wallingford, CT – Toyota Oakdale Theatre
• Oct 8 – Washington DC – Echostage
• Oct 10 – Philadelphia, PA – The Fillmore
• Oct 11 – Virginia Beach, VA – The Dome by Rutter Mills
• Oct 13 – Raleigh, NC – Red Hat Amphitheater <
• Oct 15 – Fort Lauderdale, FL – War Memorial Auditorium
• Oct 16 – Orlando, FL – Hard Rock Live
• Oct 17 – Atlanta, GA – Coca-Cola Roxy
• Oct 18 – Nashville, TN – The Truth

Europe/UK Tour Dates w/ Perturbator & RJ Pasin

• Nov 18 – Zurich, CH – Halle 622
• Nov 19 – Lyon, FR – Le Radiant
• Nov 20 – Toulouse, FR – Interference
• Nov 22 – Barcelona, ES – Razzmatazz
• Nov 23 – Madrid, ES – Sala La Riviera
• Nov 25 – Milan, IT – Alcatraz
• Nov 27 – Munich, DE – Zenith
• Nov 28 – Prague, CZ – SaSaZu
• Nov 29 – Warsaw, PL – Progresja
• Nov 30 – Leipzig, DE – Haus Auensee
• Dec 2 – Hamburg, DE – Docks
• Dec 4 – Copenhagen, DK – Amager Bio
• Dec 5 – Berlin, DE – Tempodrom
• Dec 6 – Oberhausen, DE – Turbinenhalle
• Dec 7 – Brussels, BE – Ancienne Belgique
• Dec 8 – Amsterdam, NL – AFAS Live
• Dec 9 – Paris, FR – Zenith Paris
• Dec 11 – Birmingham, UK – 02 Academy Birmingham
• Dec 12 – Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy
• Dec 15 – Leeds, UK – O2 Academy Leeds
• Dec 16 – London, UK – O2 Academy Brixton

You’ve probably heard by now, but Polyphia are officially back. That’s right: one of the most influential bands in modern prog metal released their first single in four years yesterday (11 June) – and what a return it was.

It feels like ever since the release of Remember That You Will Die in 2022, the band’s resident electric guitar virtuoso Tim Henson has been teasing what we can expect from Polyphia 5. Not only has he been getting familiar with an Ibanez eight-string prototype, Henson also told Guitar World that the new record would be heavier and more energetic than anything before it.

Well, Tim wasn’t lying. CAN YOU FEEL IT is pretty darn heavy and energetic, and makes good use of those guitars that Henson and co. designed specifically just so they could explore uncharted territory in their songwriting.

The result is a rave-riffing romp that ushers in a new genre of dance-djent. It’s heavy; it makes you want to headbang. But it’s also a bop that wouldn’t feel out of place at a house/disco/dance rave. This writer, personally, is all for it.

But what do you think? Polyphia have always pushed the boat out in guitar music, and their experimental approach to reinventing the space has both fans and naysayers. It is unsurprising, then, that social media is awash with hot takes.

So, what are your thoughts on CAN YOU FEEL IT? Are you a fan of this new Polyphia direction? Are you looking forward to the new record? What are you hoping to hear when it finally lands?

Leave all your thoughts and then some below…

Polyphia have dropped a surprise new single as the hype for their highly anticipated fifth record begins – and CAN YOU FEEL IT is everything Tim Henson promised it would be.

By now, you don’t need us to tell you just how impactful Polyphia have been on the prog scene. It runs the risk of reading all-too-familiar, but it’s not our fault. Time and time again, Henson and co have found a way to raise the bar to all-new heights.

With every new release – from their debut, Muse, in 2014 all the way to 2022’s Remember That You Will Die – the band have brought something new to the scene, be it reinventing the harmonic tapping game with 2018’s G.O.A.T., or reimagining the humble nylon-string as a weapon for prog metal with Playing God.

Well, they’ve somehow managed to do it again, making good on their year-long promise of branching into new sonic territory with a song that might just have given rise to a new genre: dance-djent.

Last year, Henson teased he was designing new guitars that didn’t exist with the sole purpose to write new material with them. At the same time, he’s been seen championing an eight-string prototype Ibanez, and told Guitar World readers they should brace themselves for something heavy.

“It’s heavy,” Henson told us at NAMM 2025. “That’s exciting for us, and I think last year was really eye-opening for us in terms of how we should start composing for the live performance.

“It made us realize, like, ‘Hey, we should start composing for it to work in these situations of 80,000-plus people.’ And so we’re trying to, obviously, bring more energy by making it heavier.”

If one word can be used to describe CAN YOU FEEL IT, “heavy” is probably the most apt. Those eight-string chugs are absolutely bone-crushing. Industrial beatdowns and pulverizing riffs are the name of the game here.

But this is Polyphia, so of course there’s a twist. You can never expect what you’ll get from Polyphia, but even so: a djent mash up over a house/club/dance rave beat certainly wasn’t on our bingo card.

And, Henson may have said he’d dial down the technicality on Polyphia 5, but there’s still an abundance on display, with liquid gold legato runs weaving through the riffs.

Produced by RJ Pasin – himself a guitarist-producer powerhouse – CAN YOU FEEL IT is a riotous re-entry into the Polyphia world. Since this is but merely the first single from the new album, there’s no telling where this new album will go. Expect more heaviness. Batten down the hatches, people.

There’s been no word on when the new album will be released as of yet, but expect news to fall in thick and fast following this new drop.

NAMM 2026: Ibanez and Polyphia virtuoso Tim Henson have reprised their successful partnership with two new versions of his immensely popular electric-nylon signature guitars.

The TOD100N and TOD100FMN come waltzing with new Fishman pickup systems, tonewoods, and looks, looking to go one better with this next generation of guitars.

Henson’s first signature nylon-string electric acoustic, the Ibanez TOD10N, arrived in late 2022 and was crowned Reverb's best-selling acoustic of 2023.

It's since started a nylon-string revolution, with Tosin Abasi's namesake brand now throwing its hat into the ring with a jaw-dropping seven-string electric nylon. It’s clear the Ibanez-Henson partnership wants to remain ahead of the curve with this drop.

Cue upgraded electronics with the TOD10N's Ibanez AEQ210TF preamp ousted in favor of a Fishman Acoustic Matrix undersaddle pickup – prevalent across both new models – while sapele back and sides are replaced with okoume, a mahogany-like tonewood commonplace across the Ibanez range. The new pair is distinguished by their tops. That’s solid Sitka spruce for the TOD100N, and flame maple for the TOD100FMN.

It's not a complete refresh, however. Its rosewood binding and its C-shape nyatoh set-in neck survive the revamp, while its 22-fret fingerboards, decorated with Henson's gorgeous Tree of Death inlay, are now made of ebony, which comes in for rosewood.

That's the same tonewood trade for its bridge – rosewood out, ebony in – while both guitars share the same fan bracing and chambered body designs and come with D'Addario XTC45 strings, as opposed to Henson's signature set from Ernie Ball.

There’s no mention of price at the time of writing, but it would be surprising if they dwarfed the circa $700 price tag of its predecessor, which also got a left-handed release in July 2024. That means we might be looking at a similar wait for left paw-friendly models.

“I wanted an acoustic guitar I could play more technical riffs on with the same ease an electric guitar would provide,” Henson told Guitar World of the guitar's conception.

“I was extremely impressed with the craftsmanship, especially in comparison to its predecessor, the SCN500. It was a lot lighter and felt a lot more ‘alive,’ as it has a chambered body. The TOD10N uses Ibanez’s FR shape, so imagine a hollowed-out version with a classical headstock.”

The nylon-string beauty has been a barnstormer, with new editions more than welcome. But the wait for the previously teased Tim Henson eight-string electric goes on.

Keep your eyes on Ibanez for more information in due course.

Feel and theory are often positioned in opposition to each other, but the most accomplished players will master both. Rick Graham is one of them.

A technical monster whose playing still fizzes with emotion, his name is spoken with reverence by some of the most accomplished and forward-thinking players on the planet, and he counts everyone from Nuno Bettencourt and Guthrie Govan, through to Andy James, Jason Richardson, Plini and Polyphia, among his friends and admirers.

The truth of this is reflected in his wealth of collabs and guest features – Plini’s Selenium Forest, Polyphia’s Envision, Richardson’s Hos Down. When Extreme rolled into his hometown of Birmingham, UK, back in August, Bettencourt praised him from the stage before launching into Midnight Express. He has, quietly and self-effacingly, become a hugely influential figure in progressive circles.

None of that has gone to his head, though. His own journey as a player was propelled in part by his brother, who sadly passed away in 2015, but has left Graham with an indelible legacy – not to mention an incredible drive – as a player. He is constantly working on original material, but is perhaps best known for sharing his knowledge through lessons and tips videos on his online platforms – though he has never identified with the term ‘influencer’.

It’s about time Graham got his dues then – and his most recent signature model from Charvel, in stunning Shell Pink, is a good start on that front.

Guitar World’s Amit Sharma spoke to Graham about his life with the guitar, from his burgeoning days as an indie kid hammering a battered acoustic, to his eventual evolution into one of the most fearsome and emotive players in progressive guitar.

Let’s go back to the beginning. What was your first guitar?

My first guitar I actually learned on was a really old, terrible acoustic guitar with action that high. But the first electric guitar was a Vox. I can't remember the exact model of it, but I was so proud of that guitar. [It] was the original, where I learned most of my riffs, and the pentatonic scales and everything that I still do now.

Who were the people who drove you to get involved with the guitar?

Right from the word go, it was Johnny Marr from the Smiths. He was the guy that really inspired me to play. I was into The Smiths, The Cure – Robert Smith influenced me, majorly. Then my brother introduced me to more rock-oriented music with Master of Puppets. [Once] I heard Master of Puppets, I was done for! From then on, it was just rock all the way.

Nirvana came out at that point. And I still love some of their tracks – In Bloom is one of my favorite tracks of all. It's just got the best riff ever. So I grew up as an '80s guy, but also embraced the grunge that came out in the early '90s. And somehow, here I am.

I always say, I'm self-taught – but with the help of really great musicians, through the music, through the records – through listening and using my ears and feeling things. It's such an important, powerful tool.

You don't necessarily have to understand how music theory works if you feel something and it means something to you. So to you, it might be “Lydian mode”, but to somebody else, it might have a certain feel to it that they cannot describe. It somehow impacts you on a different level.

As you developed as a player your listening went from Metallica to the super-shredders – and then, at some point, you must have developed a taste for fusion.

I got into that world because I started playing with a band, around about ’94, and we spent our time listening to Frank Zappa and Parliament, Funkadelic stuff. All that rhythmic funk stuff. So I really got into that.

The live Chick Corea stuff with Scott Henderson, you know, with the electric band, like King Cockroach. Scott Henderson did stuff that I was just like, “I don't quite understand what he's doing…” I had to figure it out for myself, the scales that he was using, like, melodic minor modes. So I had to sit down and just go, right, how does the melodic minor work? And how can I use it?

Then I figured out functional harmony and non-functional harmony, and how they juxtapose together. That's when I started to really go, ‘Hang on! Theory is something I want to understand, because it will help me to express myself.’

One thing that really helped me on my guitar journey was the Hot Licks lesson videotapes. I heard in an interview with you, it was a similar case. What were your favorites?

Yes! The Vinnie Moore ones I found really helpful. Both of them, I used to watch those for the intros, you know? The first one, where he had that Prairie Sun Studios T-shirt, you know? They're both just incredible.

I loved the Malmsteen one. My brother bought the Chris Impellitteri one. It was too quick for us to understand! It was so fast. I had the Joe Pass video, the Eric Johnson one – I waited so long for that. My friend had it , but he lived quite a distance from me, so I kept saying to him, “When? When can I get it?” I waited for months and finally he let me borrow it. And it was the most magical thing that I'd ever seen. The tone is phenomenal.

There's something magical about really taking your time and waiting for something, and for some reason, it resounds with you even more. Those, to me, were the golden days of guitar playing, watching those videos, and just being so inspired.

Carl Verheyan’s Intervallic Rock Solos rewired my brain. It made me start looking at the guitar in a completely different way.

The same for me, too. I remember seeing that and just going, “I never thought about it that way.” Carl Verheyan’s literally jumping around the fretboard, and it creates this freshness in the sound, but you've got to be comfortable, you've got to take the leap at some point and risk it and just go for it [to progress]. I'd rather see somebody go for it and failing, than not going for it and staying safe.

One thing you're quite famous for is your left-hand strength – the hammer-ons from nowhere! I always looked up to Reb Beach for that, with his tapping and fretting hand strength. It seems like you’re one of those people as well.

Yeah, absolutely. For me, it was to do with relaxation. I try and work on that as much as I can. I did a clinic with Reb Beach, years ago. In 2010, a friend of mine couldn't make the gig as an opener for Reb Beach in Manchester, in the UK, and he said, “Would you step in?” I was like, ‘Yeah, man, absolutely!’

So I opened for Reb Beach and got to meet him and hung out with him. He was the nicest guy ever. And what a what an amazing player he was… and the funniest guy. Tom Quayle was there. Reb came on, played a few of his tunes and halfway through one, he‘s playing, and he spots Tom in the front row and goes, “Oh, hi Tom!” [mid-song]. Tom's like, ‘What the hell?!’ He’s just a natural and a decent guy to be around.

Speaking of shoutouts, it was just a couple of months ago when Extreme were playing in Birmingham and a certain Nuno Bettencourt gave you a shout-out on the stage…

Yeah, that was quite an emotional moment for me. I was gobsmacked. I didn't expect it. I went and caught up with him before the gig. We hung out before the gig, then watched them play, and he gave me the shoutout. And I was just like, “I can't believe this. This is mental…”

Because, without my brother showing me Extreme’s music, I would never have been there. So it was a very, very emotional moment, because my brother's not here anymore. It would have been just great for him to have been there and to have experienced it, but he was there in spirit, of course.

So when Nuno gave me the shoutout – and also insulted me at the same time – I just thought, we are good friends, you know? And then once the gig had finished – and the playing was just phenomenal, the whole band were really tight – he messaged me and said, “Don't go yet!” So I went backstage and we all hung out together.

It was just the most surreal but amazing time. And that's what it should be about – what music is about – connecting with people and making good memories and making good things happen. It's not about success, fame and money. It's nothing to do with that. It's to do with creating good moments, good times – things that will stay with you for a long, long time.

The modern rock/fusion scene has a lot of young players who are also carrying the torch. I love that you've collaborated with some of them, too. Like Plini and the Polyphia guys.

Yeah, Plini, I met him on the Petrucci forum, way before he was out there doing his thing. And he was like, “I’m just releasing this EP [with this track] Selenium Forest. I've got this space. Are you ready for this?” I'm like, “Of course I am! Send it over, man.” So I did a scratch track of me soloing and sent it to him. And he just like, ‘That's great. Can you do that fast bit again?’

I practiced it and practiced it. I said, “Sorry, I just can't do it the same way.” So the [original scratch track] ended up on the on the recording. Sometimes you record something, and you capture it in the moment, and [redoing it] loses the emphasis somehow.

Then the Polyphia guys got in touch and said, “Will you do a guest solo?” and I was right in the zone with my playing then – really focused – and I was really pleased to have had that opportunity. Then Jason Richardson saw that, and was just like, “How dare he do something like that!” and so he got me on his album, which was brilliant. Then I did an Andy James track, which was a big deal for me.

So I've done quite a lot of collabs with people, but those are the ones that kind of stick with me, because these guys allowed me to express myself on a recording. And it's a great little timestamp of my life, too.

One player you get compared to a lot is Guthrie Govan. Both of you have this incredible technical dexterity, but you can be so musical as well. Have you ever met him?

Yeah, I met him. The first time, he was doing a gig in [UK city] Coventry. I was living in France at the time, and I came back from France, and I turned up and watched him play. He struggled that night; he broke a string on the first track, and it just completely threw him off, but this happens to everybody – you can't expect things to work perfectly every single time. We're human beings – but he still played amazingly well, and I got to meet him afterwards, and he was really kind.

Then I think I spoke to him at NAMM just before a Tone Merchants gig. I was really nervous for him, because there was just a tiny stage, and the whole place was packed full of guys like [arms folded], “Go on, then!” I'm like, “Oh, God… How must that feel?” But he went out and slayed it. He is, in my opinion, one of the best guitar players that has ever graced the Earth. I still watch his stuff, just going, “How!?” It's just amazing. He's changed the landscape of guitar playing.

Moving forwards, of course, you have a beautiful Charvel signature that's new for this year. Tell me about it...

Basically, it is exactly what I've always wanted. For years and years, I've been obsessed with Shell Pink. I don't know why. I can't explain it. It's just one of those things that is, to me, aesthetically beautiful. The first one was the Celeste Blue model, but that doesn't have the reverse headstock, which is a little bit of a nod to one of my favorite players, by the way. And you know, when I got the go-ahead for this, I was just like, ‘Oh man, this is going to be so awesome.’

Even now I just look at it, going, ‘God damn. This is so sexy!’ It’s amazing to look at, and it's also amazing to play. It really, really is good. These pickups are Charvel pickups – the previous ones were Bare Knuckle – but these sound incredible.

It’s got the same compound radius fretboard, as the first, which suits me down to the ground, in terms of doing chordal stuff lower down, and the shredded stuff higher up. It's really comfortable, but the tuning is tight as hell, as well. You can really bend it totally out, and it stays really tightly in tune.

Are you a pedals guy? What are the ones you couldn’t live without or that have left their mark on your over the years?

I grew up with Boss pedals. My brother used to get loads of different pedals by different companies. So he'd be, like, “Check this pedal out. Listen to it, it sounds great.” So I experimented with a lot of different pedals

[Some years back] I bought a 100-watt head from a company called Splawn Amplifiers, based in Texas. I’ve still got it. It's one mean, mean amplifier. A lot of the tuition videos I've made with mic’ing up that amp. And I was in touch with a company based in Denmark, Karl Martin effects, and they had a pedal called the Plexitone and, man, I plugged that in and it was like, “Holy shit!” It took the amp to another level. It needed the pedal to be honest. So I used those for a while, but I'm not that much of a pedal geek.

No, I can't imagine you plugging into a vibe or chorus that often. I think modulations may be less your bag.

Well I did. I bought a Marshall 1974x amp that has built-in tremolo and that was just incredible. I always played it when I felt sad, for some reason, just plugged in and had the tremolo on, when I felt the blues.

It was a great amp. I don't have it anymore, but I recorded a track called I Can Feel You Breathe, that I wrote in 2016, with that amp – and I still get people saying, “What sound are you using on the Axe-Fx?” And I'm like, “No, that’s a real amp mic’d up in my my bedroom, with a foot stool and an SM58!”

I recorded another track called Your Eyes about two days after [using the Axe-Fx], and they're both like fingerstyle pieces, but I can tell the difference, you know, from the first track. Not a lot of people can – but then again, I wrote the bloody music and recorded it. So if I couldn't tell, then there'd be something wrong! I don't quite know how to quantify it. There's something not quite there, you know, but it's still amazing [modeling].

A lot of it is to do with the player as well. We mustn't forget that what we’ve got with these [our ears], that's a big deal. That's what really creates your sound. You can have all the best gear in the world. But if you haven't got it here [in the ear], it ain't gonna help you very much.

Vibrato is like a window into a guitar player's soul. Everyone’s got their own take on it, like Zakk Wylde's is big and wide and quite frenetic. Yours is a bit slower and very controlled, and maybe more from the Petrucci kind of world.

I'm glad you talked about this, because it was a big deal for me. When I was developing my playing, my brother was always there with everything. He was always right behind me going, “Rick, why aren't you doing this?” And vibrato was a big deal. He pulled me to one side one day and said, “Rick, it's terrible. You’ve got to work on it.”

So I treated it like a vocalist would. [Running up and down the bend] that took years and years for me to develop. I spent years with it being out of tune, out of control. I spent years because I wanted to make sure that my delivery was good – even if the notes in between weren't great, at least I could finish it with something!

A [good vibrato] means a hell of a lot more than just playing something [complicated], messing it up, and not delivering it with intention.

• Rick Graham’s Charvel Signature Pro Mod DK24 PT is available now for $1,799. For more information head to Charvel.

After learning that his signature Ibanez TOD10N, which debuted in 2023, has been named one of our 50 most important pieces of gear of the past 25 years, Tim Henson tells us: “I’m honored! My guitar came from the necessity to evolve my sound. It’s amazing that it’s been so impactful to enough people that it made this list.”

Since its wide-scale release, the TOD10N has become not just a tool for Henson, but a hallmark. “It’s become a staple of my playing,” Henson says. “It also seems to have started a nylon-electric movement among other players, which is something I’m super-happy to have helped kickstart in the modern era.”

Henson has been playing his TOD10N on tour with Polyphia, which has seen the guitar clapping back at stadium-sized crowds. “If you were to get this guitar as a Christmas gift or something of that sort, you could take it from your bedroom all the way to stadiums,” he says.

As for where he plans to take his signature line next, he says he wants to produce a whole line of different-tiered instruments. “I had no idea what the price of the guitar was going to be until announcement day,” Henson says.

“When I got the copy, I read ‘$700’ and thought, ‘Damn… this guitar is super-affordable; that’s incredible.’ To have so many wonderful qualities at that price made me realize it can only get better from here. For people who are looking for better electronics and higher-quality and craftsmanship, there are awesome things coming their way.”

What led to the creation of the TOD10N, and what was your goal?

I wanted an acoustic guitar I could play more technical riffs on with the same ease an electric guitar would provide. I realized a lot of our riffs that are based around the harmonic minor scale sound super-“Spanish” when played on a nylon-string. Another path I visualized for the instrument was to create my own guitar samples that I could make beats from.

What experiences with previous guitars impacted how you designed your Ibanez?

I discovered the Ibanez SCN500 at a music store in Cologne, Germany. I had no idea a nylon-string S series existed, and my first thought was to try out some of our more technical riffs. It worked like a charm, so I bought it and then asked Ibanez to make me a modern version.

After presenting them with an early demo of our song Playing God, the fire was lit to create the guitar that prompted these questions.

The first time you played your signature Ibanez, what were your thoughts?

I was extremely impressed with the craftsmanship, especially in comparison to its predecessor, the SCN500. It was a lot lighter and felt a lot more “alive,” as it has a chambered body. The TOD10N uses Ibanez’s FR shape, so imagine a hollowed-out version with a classical headstock.

The result of that is very fast but acoustically loud, in comparison to a fully electric guitar – or even the SCN500. We went through a few prototypes before landing on the version that we brought to retail.

Why do you feel the TOD10N has resonated with so many people?

Number one, the aesthetics. It looks really beautiful. That alone will get it into the hands of a player. That’s where the magic comes. Number two is the guitar itself. It’s incredibly light, almost like a toy. And it’s fun to play, again like a toy.

But it’s not a toy; it’s an incredible instrument that I’m about to use today to play to 50,000 people in a stadium as we start our tour supporting System of a Down.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

As I wrote in this space last year, we typically get an early start on our annual end-of-year issue. Therefore – out of necessity – a lot of this issue was put together in late October, including our annual “biggest guitar news of the year” feature.

But, to prove how alive, dynamic and inherently interesting “guitar land” is, I had to update our news feature – literally on the page – almost every day as our printer deadline approached. Whether it was the sale of Eddie Van Halen’s “Kramer Ad” guitar, the Stray Cats’ tour cancellation, Gibson/Epiphone’s Back to the Future ES-345s, Nigel Tufnel’s new Marshall amp or who knows what else, there was always something happening.

Of course, the biggest – and most tragic – piece of “late news” was the death of Kiss co-founder Ace Frehley, a down-to-earth and charismatic guy (not to mention a local boy) who graced our cover several times.

We happened to have an unpublished early-2025 Frehley interview in the can, so it made sense to include that as part of this issue’s 11-page Ace tribute. This "lost interview" conveys everything that made Ace fun to talk to and know – his honesty, his sense of humor and his wealth of detailed memories about the good-ish ol’ days.

This dashing, rectangular and bulbous issue includes...

* Our editors choose the guitarists of the year – 20-ish players who left their indelible mark on 2025, including Nuno Bettencourt, Jake E. Lee, the guys from Mirador, Marcus King, Nigel Tufnel, Noel Gallagher, Stephen Carpenter, Tim Henson and a ton more.

* A recap of the biggest guitar news of the year – including the deaths of Ace Frehley, Ozzy Osbourne and Brent Hinds, plus that massive Back to the Beginning event way back in July, the end of Megadeth, those Modified Marshalls and more.

* The GW gang chooses our favorite new gear of the year, including the EVH SA-126 Standard, the Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble, Taylor's new Gold Label acoustics and many, many more things that we'd love to own.

* A plethora of guitar stars – including Don Felder, Brad Gillis, Kiki Wong, Max Cavalera, Herman Li, Vernon Reid, Joe Perry, Keith Urban, Eric Gales, Richard Fortus, Melanie Faye, Steve Stevens and more – choose the year’s best albums, solos, riffs, songs, guitar moments, guitarists of the year and more.

* A tribute to Ace Frehley, including an interview conducted in early 2025 but not published till this issue.

Not so fast! We've got this stuff too

The Gear Hunter checks in with Paul Reed Smith over at PRS Guitars, a company that's celebrating its 40th anniversary.

We also chat with Nuno Bettencourt (one of our guitarists of the year) and transcribe – for the first time in our 45 years on the planet –Young Man Blues from Live at Leeds by the Who. Our other transcriptions are Shinedown's 2025 track Three Six Five and Buddy Holly's Blue Days, Black Nights, featuring the late, great Sonny Curtis on guitar.

Gear-wise, we explore the history and allure of the Gibson SG Standard, and we review all this lovely stuff:

• Ibanez Q54W
• Boss PX-1 Plugout FX
• Sterling by Music Man Kaizen 7
• Fender American Professional Classic Stratocaster
• Warm Audio Throne of Tone
• JHS Pedals 424 Gain Stage

Finally, we have new columns by Joe Bonamassa, Jared James Nichols and Cory Wong, and we introduce a new columnist, Blackberry Smoke guitarist Charlie Starr.

You can buy new issues of Guitar World at Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Hudson News, Books a Million and other stores. But why not save on every issue by subscribing?

Before Tim Henson changed the progressive metal game with and stretched the very boundaries of guitar playing with his expansive playing style, he began his fledgling music journey playing violin.

“I had started when I was, like, three years old, and I picked up the guitar when I was 10,” Henson reveals in an interview with The Music Zoo. “And I just remember thinking, ‘Oh, that's [referring to the guitar] really similar to a violin. And because I've got seven years of violin, I could probably be pretty good at that.’”

However, as the Polyphia guitarist relates, that wasn't necessarily the case.

“It was extremely humbling, because I wasn't [good], at all, but it made me want to get really good at [guitar]. And because I already knew how to get good at something, it was just like, ‘Okay, well, let me just do the same thing that I did here, practice with consistency, and eventually I got better, until the point where you could call it good.’”

In the same interview, Henson briefly discussed the making of Polyphia's highly anticipated next record, teasing, “We used to joke about maybe the next record will be a country record [laughs].

“The last record we did felt very much like, ‘How diverse can we make this sound by touching all these different genres?’

“And what we're having a lot of fun with right now is picking one sound – and it's not really one that I can describe to you, because it's some new shit – but going really deep into the sound, rather than kind of a shallow spreading out of the thing. It's just deeper.”

In more Tim Henson news, the virtuoso recently discussed why learning everything by ear is the best thing aspiring guitarists can do.

Founded in Japan all the way back in 1957, with roots stretching to the Hoshino Gakki company in 1908, Ibanez stands today as one of the key players in the guitar market.

The brand has always been synonymous with high quality – so much so, in fact, that there’s even a now-collectable ‘lawsuit’ period of instruments from a time when American brands felt threatened by their Eastern imitators.

And while it’s easy to think of Ibanez as a company that’s at the cutting edge of metal machines for the modern age, it's also innovated much further afield: producing timeless acoustics, semi-hollows, and hollowbody instruments – not forgetting, of course, some of the world’s best-selling overdrive pedals in the Tube Screamer series. Which is exactly why this list of the 25 most important Ibanez players crosses through various genres and styles.

It's become the go-to brand for all kinds of players, from original jazz cats like George Benson and fusion pioneers like Pat Metheny to acoustic renegades like Jon Gomm and Marcin and modern trailblazers like Nita Strauss and Yvette Young.

Steve Vai

Could Steve Vai be the most quintessential Ibanez player of them all?

After all, it was his first JEM signature in 1987 that inspired the RG series, which quickly became a bestseller for the company. And then just a few years later, his Universe signatures made history as the world’s first mass-produced seven-string electric.

More importantly, however, Vai ended up cementing his name as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, from his stints with Frank Zappa, Whitesnake, and David Lee Roth and game-changing solo records like Passion And Warfare, Real Illusions: Reflections, and his latest instrumental masterpiece, Inviolate.

Joe Satriani

How many guitarists can say they taught the likes of Steve Vai, Kirk Hammett, and Alex Skolnick? Joe Satriani is truly one of a kind in that sense, but more significantly, he took rock guitar to new heights with the double Grammy-nominated album, Surfing With The Alien, and continued to innovate on the releases that followed, most notably Flying In A Blue Dream and The Extremist.

The legato-loving legend has also been prolific as a collaborator, having conquered arenas as part of Mick Jagger’s band and Deep Purple, as well as starting the G3 supergroup alongside Steve Vai. More recently, he’s been busy working with ex-Van Halen members on the Best Of All Worlds tour.

Paul Gilbert

Alongside Vai and Satch, Paul Gilbert completes what many would consider to be ‘The Big Three’ of Ibanez shredders.

His work in Racer X and Mr. Big sets him apart as one of the most advanced minds to pick up a guitar, as well as one of the most ferocious alternate pickers the world has ever seen, fusing the neoclassical edge of Yngwie Malmsteen with the impromptu bluesiness of Edward Van Halen.

He’s had all kinds of Ibanez signatures through the years, from the PGM series to the Fireman models he’s usually seen with today, having designed the latter, reversed-body model himself.

Pat Metheny

Since the release of his debut album in 1975, Pat Metheny has continually proven himself to be one of the most revolutionary minds to ever work in jazz, cross-pollinating elements of the traditional with more worldly and experimental meditations.

He currently has two Ibanez signature models, the PM200 and PM3C, and his most famous works include Still Life (Talking), Letter From Home, and Bright Size Life.

As well as these sizeable contributions to the world of electric guitar, he’s also recorded unaccompanied acoustic albums like 2003’s One Quiet Night and last year’s MoonDial release, which saw him wielding a custom-built baritone guitar made by the luthier Linda Manzer.

Tim Henson and Scott LePage

The genre-smashing guitarists from Polyphia could very well be two of the most ground-breaking names in the company’s roster of signature artists, at least in terms of recent additions.

Their most recent album, 2022’s Remember That You Will Die, was voted as the best guitar album of that year by GW readers and was also notable for featuring fellow Ibanez endorsee Steve Vai on its mind-melting closing track, Ego Death.

By that point, both guitarists already had their own signature electrics, but what really got the industry talking was Henson’s TOD10N nylon-string electric, as prominently featured on the album’s lead single, Playing God.

Ichika Nito

As the very first Japanese guitarist to become an Ibanez signature artist, you could say Ichika Nito is making history for all the right reasons.

Much like Tim Henson and Scott LePage, his take on guitar is an incredibly contemporary one – combining the sounds of tech-metal with spanky and funky cleans while dazzling listeners with an array of legato and two-handed techniques.

He currently has two Ibanez models, the Talman-inspired ICHI00 and the headless Q Series-style ICHI10.

John Scofield

Having worked with everyone from Miles Davis and Charles Mingus to Herbie Hancock and Weather Report, John Scofield’s jazz credentials are as impressive as they come.

His most famous works include 1986’s Still Warm, 1994’s Hand Jive, and 1997’s A Go Go, as well as 1994’s I Can See Your House From Here – which saw him team up with fellow Ibanez signature artist Pat Metheny for an absolute tour-de-force of modern jazz. He’s also ventured into bluesier sonic pastures, having collaborated with John Mayer and Gov't Mule.

Josh Smith

Continually featured in lists of the best blues guitarists in the world today, it’s no wonder that Josh Smith ended up being recruited by Joe Bonamassa and has become a regular face in the blues giant’s backing band. The pair also work together regularly as producers, lending their expertise to fellow blues powerhouses like Eric Gales and Larry McCray.

The guitarist/singer currently has two T-style signatures, the FlATV1 and FlATV2, and is also highly regarded for his informative tutorials, some of which he has authored for this very publication.

Manuel Gardner Fernandes

As the driving force behind progressive metal band Unprocessed, German guitarist Manuel Gardner Fernandes is someone who knows how to blend the power of gargantuan riffs with blistering lead work.

Last year he was awarded his own signature guitar, the MGFM10 – a stunning headless model in Obsidian Black Low Gloss, boasting the same advanced switching system he uses to make his guitar go from apocalyptic roars to spanky cleans.

This year’s latest Unprocessed album, titled Angel, served as yet another firm reminder of his all-encompassing talents.

George Benson

Now at 82 years old, George Benson is one of the dyed-in-the-wool veterans of jazz guitar – a multiple Grammy-winning master who influenced the sound of an entire genre and ended up inspiring countless players that came after him.

Over the years, as well as releasing an extensive solo discography, he’s worked with mainstream greats such as Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin, and Frank Sinatra, making him one of the most prolific jazz artists of all time. He currently has six Ibanez signature models, all of them hollowbody designs.

Yvette Young

There’s a wonderfully abstract quality to Yvette Young’s sound – of course, there’s plenty of dexterity and technicality, but the real magic lies in the sheer amount of personality the Covet guitarist throws into every note she plays.

Part of this comes down to her alternate tunings, which she has often cited as a secret weapon for yielding interesting results, as well as her experimental approach to tone, but then there’s also her piano background – which has led to her unique sense of phrasing and ear for melody.

Marcin

Having just turned 25, it would be fair to say Polish wunderkind Marcin Patrzałek is spearheading a new generation of daredevil acoustic guitarists.

He rose to fame partly thanks to his viral videos that shocked listeners in how they were able to blur the lines between classical and contemporary music. This all led to the release of his first signature in 2022, the Ibanez MRC10, and a major label deal that started with last year’s debut full-length, Dragon In Harmony.

Nita Strauss

In 2018, Nita Strauss made history as the first woman to have her own Ibanez signature model, which she named the JIVA. It was certainly well-warranted, given her background playing in Alice Cooper’s band, as well as the all-female tribute band The Iron Maidens.

Since then she’s worked with pop sensation Demi Lovato and has also released two solo albums, the latter of which featured an array of high profile guest stars, including Marty Friedman, David Draiman, and Lzzy Hale.

Andy Timmons

When it comes to tasteful shredding, Andy Timmons is up there with the likes of gold-standard legends like Eric Johnson and Steve Lukather.

He knows how to impress people, but more importantly, he knows when to focus on the melody. Which is exactly why he’s worked with high profile names like Olivia Newton-John, Paula Abdul, and fellow Ibanez endorsee Paul Stanley.

He currently has three Strat-style Ibanez signatures, which come fitted with three DiMarzio humbuckers, including his own AT-1 pickup in the bridge.

Jon Gomm

English guitarist Jon Gomm became one of the early standouts in the modern percussive acoustic scene thanks to the 2011 track Passionflower going viral, which led to both national and international coverage.

In 2020, he announced he’d joined the Ibanez roster, and two years later he unveiled a pair of signature models – the JGM5 and the JGM10 – tailor-made for wanting to implement two-handed ideas based on open tunings, while also using the body of the guitar for drum beats.

Lari Basilio

Over the last decade or so, Brazilian virtuoso Lari Basilio has established herself as one of the most tasteful players of her generation – striking that perfect balance between technical wizardry, emotional phrasing, and an inimitable sense of feel.

Her Seymour Duncan-equipped LB1 signature was debuted in 2021, making her the third female signature artist for Ibanez, with the latest update being this year’s version in black.

Her latest album, Redemption, was also released earlier this year, with no shortage of dazzling fretwork and earworm melodies.

James ‘Munky’ Shaffer and Brian ‘Head’ Welch

Steve Vai may have helped invent the world’s first mass-produced electric seven-string with Ibanez, but it was Korn who took that extended range to new (or nu) metallic heights, inventing a whole subgenre in the process.

For guitarists Munky and Head, the extra low-end only intensified the heaviness and helped them reinvent guitar music in the mid-90s.

Head left Ibanez for ESP back in 2016 but made his official return to the fold earlier this year with the launch of the K7 series.

Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström

Much like Munky and Head from Korn, Meshuggah guitarists Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström were early adopters of the seven-string, as demonstrated on the 1995 tech-metal landmark, Destroy Erase Improve.

Other releases like Chaosphere, Nothing, and Obzen would also become hugely influential on the tech-metal scene, with bands like Animals As Leaders, Periphery, and Tesseract taking metric modulations and polyrhythmic concepts to new sonic horizons.

The Swedish pair would later move onto eight-strings, leading to signature models like the M8M, M80M, and FTM33.

Paul Stanley

It’s easy to think of Kiss as a Gibson band, given the kind of instruments usually seen in the hands of lead guitarists like Ace Frehley and Tommy Thayer.

Singer and rhythm guitarist Paul Stanley, however, has been using Ibanez guitars on and off since 1977 – most notably the company's Iceman offset – which led to the five signature models that currently bear his name, including the striking Cracked Mirror PS1CM.

Kiko Loureiro

There’s a golden rule for anyone who plays lead guitar in Megadeth – you have to be, without question, one of the best shredders on the planet.

Brazilian virtuoso Kiko Loureiro had already proven his merits in Angra and was a perfect fit for the thrash titans when he joined in 2015. He recorded two albums with the band, 2016’s Dystopia and 2022’s The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!, before announcing his departure in 2023.

He currently has three Ibanez signature models, all of which feature his custom DiMarzio pickups and a double-locking tremolo system.

Dexter Holland and Noodles

As the two guitar players in The Offspring, Dexter Holland and Noodles are well-known for dialing in tones that are guaranteed to cut through any mix.

The pair were at the very forefront of the 90s punk rock scene, with key albums like Smash and Ixnay On The Hombre setting them up for the mainstream success that followed with the 1998 bestseller Americana, which yielded hit singles like Pretty Fly (For A White Guy), Why Don’t You Get A Job?, and The Kids Aren’t Alright.

Holland sticks with ARZ and RG models while Noodles has had several signatures, the latest being 2020’s NDM5.

Daron Malakian

Joining Paul Stanley, Fredrik Thordendal, and Tom G. Warrior in our list of Iceman devotees, System Of A Down guitarist Daron Malakian is someone deeply connected to the striking offset shape.

“I went to Guitar Center, and I saw this Iceman sitting there, and I was like, ‘You know, that’s a guitar that not too many people use’,” he once explained.

The Armenian-American group became one of the biggest bands of their generation thanks to the world-conquering success of tracks like Chop Suey!, Toxicity, and Aerials.

Nili Brosh

Well-renowned for being one of the most versatile musicians in the Ibanez roster, Israeli-American shredder Nili Brosh has performed with Danny Elfman, Cirque Du Soleil, Dethklok, The Iron Maidens, and Tony MacAlpine – a list which perfectly demonstrates just how well-rounded her skillset is.

Her third solo album, titled Spectrum, was released in 2019 and her main guitars include an Ibanez LA Custom RG770 and a Desert Yellow RG550.

Jake Bowen

The sole Ibanez endorsee in Periphery’s trio of hotshot guitarists, Jake Bowen is also their longest-serving member after founder Misha Mansoor.

Over the course of seven full-length albums, they’ve become torchbearers for the modern tech-metal scene and in many ways typify the ‘djent’ wave of bands that arrived roughly 10 years after the new millennium.

He currently has three signature models: the JBM9999 and JBM10FX six-strings as well as the JBM27 seven-string.

Martin Miller

Martin Miller is a man of many talents. The German musician is a highly respected educator, with books and video courses to help rock guitarists expand into fusion.

He also writes, records, and tours original music, but his biggest calling card has been a series of live studio performances that find him enrolling guitar heroes old and new to cover hits of every kind. Hey Jude with Paul Gilbert, Kiss from a Rose with Lari Basilio, and Get Lucky with Kirk Fletcher are just three prominent examples.

He has a pair of Ibanez signatures to his name, the most recent being the MMN1, which was released in 2023.

Tim Henson has emerged as one of the most authoritative voices in the contemporary guitar scene. The virtuoso sparked up a debate a couple of years back when he made a throwaway comment saying he prefers to avoid “boomer-ish” bends, which even led to Kirk Hammett giving his two cents about the whole ordeal.

Now, the Polyphia guitarist is sharing his thoughts on the best thing young guitarists – or those just starting to learn the instrument – should do: “learn everything you can by ear.”

“We sell our tablature. It's one of the things that helps us pay our bills, and I think it's a great tool and a great helper,” he tells Music Zoo's Tommy Colletti. “But for the young guitar players who want to play guitar, learn it by ear. Just learn everything that you can by ear.

“And if you want to get the tab afterwards to double check and maybe, if there's something that you were struggling with that you couldn't just quite get, sure, do it, but learn it by ear. That is going to be the most important thing for any musician is to just be able to hear it and to play it.”

Henson's advice is informed by his own experience switching from violin to guitar and learning guitar by ear, which he saw as an “escape” from the rigid confines of classical music.

“I started playing violin. Before I started playing guitar, I started playing at the age of three. I can sight-read violin pretty well. When it comes to reading sheet music for guitar, I don't even really know where all the notes of the guitar are because I learned to play by ear, and because, for me, violin was so rigid, and it kind of killed any sort of love for music.

“It made me hate music,” he continues, “because, especially in classical music, you're essentially just doing cover songs all the time. There's no room for creativity. And when I picked up the guitar at 10, I saw it as an escape from that.”

A guitar luminary who might not necessarily agree with Henson's advice is Cory Wong, who, just a couple of months ago, asserted that players can’t call themselves advanced guitarists unless they can ace one specific test: knowing where all the notes on a guitar are.

What is it?

Every now and then, artists come along that mix things up in a way that evolves and inspires. It’s fair to say that for instrumental guitar music, Polyphia is one such band. But in my previous life as a guitar teacher, I had mixed feelings about this: I loved how the band inspired my students, but knew that whenever Polyphia came up, I was in for a tricky few hours of figuring out exactly what on earth Tim Henson and Scott Lepage were doing.

Their alternative and technical approach to guitar is what made this a difficult task, but it also makes the signature guitars they have both released with Ibanez all the more intriguing. Will their guitars be as unique as their playing styles? With Tim Henson's Ibanez TOD10 in hand, I am looking forward to finding out.

Specs

• Launch price: $1599/£1499/€1555
• Made: Indonesia
• Type: Six-string electric guitar
• Body: American basswood
• Neck: Roasted maple/AZ Oval C
• Fingerboard: Ebony
• Scale length: 25.5"/648mm
• Nut/width: Graph Tech/41mm
• Frets: 24, jumbo stainless steel
• Hardware: Gotoh SG381 MG-T locking tuners, Gotoh T1502 tremolo bridge
• String spacing at bridge: 52mm
• Electrics: Fishman Fluence Tim Henson signature pickups, volume and push/pull tone control, 5-way pickup selector
• Weight: 7lb / 3.17kg
• Left-handed options: No
• Finishes: Classic Silver (as reviewed), Metallic Mauve
• Cases: Ibanez soft case
• Contact: Ibanez

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★☆

The Classic Silver finish of this test model is both bold and simple. It’s a bright choice that will stand out in any context, but its monochromatic nature keeps things classy.

Combined with the ‘Tree Of Death’ inlays - Tim Henson's take on the iconic 'Tree Of Life' pattern that decorates Steve Vai's signature models - the TOD10 is a striking guitar, particularly in the Metallic Muave (pink) alternative.

As good as it looks, the finish on our test model has a rough texture around the bolts at the heel joint, the pickup selector, and the pickups themselves. It’s nothing that draws the eye enough to be a deal breaker, but is disappointing to see.

However, that is the only real complaint here. The stainless steel fretwork is impeccable, and the guitar arrived well set up, with a low action; sitting at 1.25mm on the low E and 1mm on the high E at the 12th fret.

Through hours of playing and trying to remember some rather involved Polyphia riffs, the tuning remains solid, and the Gotoh SG381 MG-T locking machine heads with their 1:16 ratio feel smooth in use, as you should expect from the Japanese company./

Also courtesy of Gotoh is the T1502 floating bridge, which also holds the tuning steady, even after some considerable abuse of the tremolo arm.

We’ve all been on a sweaty stage where control knobs can get a little slippery; however, the TOD10 combats this with some nice, grippy gnurling. The push-pull tone pot also has a soft touch action, which I find profoundly satisfying in a way that is probably a little beyond reasonable.

Also well thought out is the placement of the output jack, recessed into the guitar and oriented at a roughly 45-degree upward angle, which helps keep the lead from clumsy feet or arms. In short, a solid and well-designed guitar build.

Playability

Playability rating: ★★★★★

With Ibanez’s form for making guitars built for all-out, wizard-level shred and Tim Henson's impressive level of technical ability on display on pretty much every Polyphia track, you would be forgiven for expecting a guitar with a flat radius and a paper-thin neck profile. However, the TOD10 stops shy of this.

Don’t get me wrong, the guitar still feels quick, as with a 22mm thickness at the 12th fret, the ‘AZ Oval C’ neck carve is on the skinnier side of things, but it offers slightly more girth than the 17mm on some Ibanez RGs, as an example. A small difference, but one that is noticeable.

There’s a slight flattening in the centre of the carve - a feel that to some may seem a little odd, but I find it to be a comfortable experience, keeping the thumb in the correct place.

Staying away from compound options and going for a 12” fretboard radius is a more traditional route relative to other Ibanez products, but flatter than a standard Fender 9.5"; it’s still plenty flat enough to allow for those flashy legato licks and feels familiar under the fingers.

Everybody needs a bit of wobble to complement those legato runs, and the jumbo frets make bullying the strings into big (some would say boomer) bends and wide vibrato a breeze.

Yet more wobble is provided by the whammy bar, which is smooth in use, aided by the guitar's excellent setup.

All this means that even with the 12" radius, the TOD10 feels modern in most respects. Where things get distinctly Ibanez-y is with that AZ Oval neck carve. It’s a comfortable shape that is speedy without being too skinny, making for a machine that delivers everything needed for kinetic, technical playing.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★½

For those new to a Fluence and five-way selector setup, the pickups may seem a little complicated in terms of switching, but the flip side is a wide variety of tones. The TOD 10 is equipped with Tim Henson's signature Fishman Fluence pickups, which are adorned with three voices. Voice one is a modern, high-output humbucker, two is a more traditional style bucker, and three gives us a single-coil flavour.

These voices are accessed via the five-way pickup selector and the push-pull tone pot, to make for a total of eight different sounds (the push-pull affects no change in positions two and four).

The TOD10 page on Ibanez’s website presents a handy diagram that details exactly what voice is active and when, but the best thing here is to let your ears do the work, and use the diagram for a bit of context if you want it. And as a guitar geek, I definitely do.

I am using a Victory The Duchess MKII tube amp head and Victory Lunchbox 1x12 guitar cab that I happen to have in for testing to give me some glassy cleans, and my own Tonex pedal, along with the Tonex Cab and a JCM800 profile for the driven stuff. A quick play through and I’m already smiling - the variety of sounds here is astounding.

The modern humbucker sound in position one is that high-output, rounded sound as expected from the description. Perfect for the heavier side of things, with the downside being that this sort of tone can lack a bit of cut in some mixes. In which case, Fishman has you covered with Voice Two, which brightens things up and keeps the low end even tighter.

Position two brings in some single-coil snap, and I’m immediately reminded of Polyphia’s The Worst with a tone that sounds like the out-of-phase Stratocaster thing with an extra helping of mid range - I'm a big fan.

Interestingly, position three with the push-pull in the up position is the same configuration as position two, but with it down, we are back into humbucker land, activating both the pickups to give us all the punch and girth needed for fat leads.

Three out of the five positions in, and we already have a ton of tonal diversity. The fourth takes a step into the more familiar, with a brighter, modern version of that stratty position four sound. I know I should probably stay within the land of modern technical music, but what I really want to do here is bust out some Nile Rodgers riffs.

The neck pickup in voice one delves into typical warm humbucker vibes, but with a clarity on the high strings that keeps things sounding modern. Voice two is more interesting. It is a humbucker, but with a snap that sounds almost single coil, and provides a glassy sound that is heavenly within a clean context.

These pickups are giving out much more than the average, coil-split-equipped humbucker tones you may find elsewhere. The voices here are genuinely different, allowing for two distinct flavours of humbucker and a single coil that sounds much more convincing than coil splits or taps usually do, making for an impressive variety of usable tones.

Certain configurations result in no change when the selector is moved or the push-pull pot is used. This is a little confusing at first, but the complicated switching is worth it to get the myriad of sounds.

Underneath all of it, though, what is apparent is their modern character. The sound is bright, as is often indicative of active pickups, but in this case, in a pleasing way.

It’s not necessarily a sound that will suit the traditionalists, but it is perfect for those complicated chords and flashy lead lines that require clarity from a guitar tone.

Verdict

Needless to say, then, the TOD10 is indeed as interesting as Polyphia’s style of music. The distinct AZ Oval C neck gives it a quick feel that facilitates all that is needed for the technical wizard, whilst stopping short of wafer-thin and retaining a touch of familiarity with the 12” fretboard radius, making for a playing experience that is unique to some of Ibanez's AZ models.

Then, the sheer number of usable sounds facilitated by the Fishman Fluence Tim Henson signature pickups results in an instrument that is undeniably inspiring to play in the context of modern music.

Present through all these sounds is a contemporary type of clarity. The Ibanez TOD10 is perhaps not for those chasing a guitar tone influenced by the originators of the rock genre through the likes of Les Pauls and Strats, but an obvious must-try for Polyphia fans looking to recreate those unique sounds, or for a guitarist after something a little different in the modern realm.

Guitar World verdict: The Ibanez TOD10 presents a wildly versatile sonic palette of the modern persuasion. It is a well-built, supremely playable guitar, perfect not only for the Polyphia enthusiast but also as a source of inspiration for anyone writing technical, guitar-based music.

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Tim Henson has responded to recent comments made by Kirk Hammett, after the Metallica electric guitar hero recently gave his thoughts on the ‘boomer bends’ controversy that Henson spawned a few years ago.

Back in 2021, Henson made a throwaway comment concerning his stylistic preferences, saying he prefers to avoid “bommer-ish” bends – something that relies on oft-heard blues rock cliché’s – in his own playing.

The offhand remark sparked intense debate and it seems, three years on, the conversation still has legs: earlier this year, Hammett offered both criticism and praise to Henson over his boomer bends observations, praising his technique but questioning just how accessible his style is to the casual listener.

“I love that. Is he gonna call Eddie Van Halen a boomer guitar player?” Hammett said earlier this year. “I really like his style. It's really unique, and in terms of technique, it's amazing. It's the age old question, how relatable is it? It's good to listen to three or four times, but can you really relate?”

When asked by Rolling Stone if he’d seen Hammett’s response, Henson says, “I did! I got a Google alert for Polyphia, and I was like, ‘Oh, what’s this with Kirk Hammett?’ I click on it and I started reading and I’m just like, ‘Oh my God. This is a compliment and a diss at the same time from fucking Kirk Hammett!’”

The reaction from the band was mixed. While Henson saw the silver lining, Scott LePage – Henson’s guitar foil in Polyphia who has a rather strong bond with ’tallica – felt especially let down.

Henson continues, “Scott is a Metallica head. Scott’s father is the singer in Kill ‘Em All, which is a Metallica cover band. That’s what they do on the weekends. When Scott’s dad’s not at his job, he’s fucking doing a Metallica cover band. So Scott got sad.

“But I was happy because in an interview that Kirk Hammett was doing about Hammett activities and the world of Kirk Hammett, my name was brought up! So I’m happy about that and I appreciate you doing that. I appreciate that he even has thoughts about it.”

And Hammett certainly had a few things to say about Henson’s playing. Speaking to Rolling Stone’s Music Now podcast, he reflected, “Is he hitting on raw emotion? No, it's so complicated. It's a very distinct emotion that he's shooting for.

“Therefore, how accessible is it on a larger scale? It's only accessible to people who like that, or can understand that. It's a very small category of people. That's absolutely fine if he wants to reach that category of people.”

Still, Henson isn’t holding it against Hammett, and has even issued a public plea to have the two bands line-up together on the same bill.

“Kirk, if you are reading this one, thank you for the acknowledgement. You’re a fucking legend. Take us on tour, dude. Please. Seriously, man. Let’s talk about it over a beer, maybe.”

The ‘boomer bends’ conversation doesn’t seem to be going away, something made all the more frustrating for the fact Henson’s sentiments have been widely misunderstood and misinterpreted by guitar fans.

In 2021, Henson was forced to clarify his reflections, saying, “No-one said you couldn’t bend!”

More recently, Henson was revealed to be the guitar star who had been hand-picked by Hans Zimmer to work on the soundtrack for the recent F1 film – a secret project that Henson had discussed with Guitar World at NAMM this year.

Liam Gallagher’s son believes that guitar music is making a comeback, and its return could have something to do with Oasis' impending reunion.

Speaking to W Magazine, Gene Gallagher, who fronts the indie band Villanelle, reckons music fans have long been without guitar music, but all that is now starting to change.

“People have been deprived of guitar music,” he says (via Guitar.com). “But now it’s coming back, and everyone’s getting excited about it.”

Of course, the guitar had been in perfectly fine health prior to any word of Oasis' reunion, and as Gallagher alludes to, its presence throughout all corners of the music world has been keenly felt for years now.

Indeed, as recently as last weekend, Glastonbury 2025 was packed with stand-out electric guitar moments from act who are – and have been – flying the flag for a new generation of guitar artists for some time. Wet Leg and Wolf Alice are just two examples, but the list is far longer than that.

Elsewhere, Olivia Rodrigo has even been labelled as her generation’s Eddie Van Halen for how she is shoving guitar music back into the limelight and inspiring new generations of players to pick up the instrument in the process.

Then there’s Chapelle Roan injecting guitar solos into chart-decimating pop bangers, and of course, Taylor Swift’s influence cannot be underestimated either.

Outside of the popular music sphere, players such as Tim Henson and Tosin Abasi have catapulted the progressive contemporary guitar landscape into a new era with their unique playing style. In fact, the Polyphia virtuoso recently pointed to another unlikely hero: Machine Gun Kelly.

The guitarist, who raised eyebrows with his Chibson-esque razor blade Schecter, started his career as a rapper, but pivoted to the guitar for his more recent releases – another example of the instrument's evergreen presence in the music world.

Henson muses, “...MGK got a number one record with a guitar on the cover, [2020's Tickets to My Downfall], which is really cool.”

And, on the topic of guitar music’s resurgence, Sleep Token have to be involved in the conversation. The band's mix of R&B, gospel, pop, and prog metal is helping introduce a legion of new fans to the majesty of the electric guitar.

Justin Hawkins, meanwhile, sees a through line between Polyphia and Sleep Token, noting that there has also been a steep rise in the interest for technical playing.

“People have more respect for bands like Sleep Token, who are doing something really interesting, complex, and difficult to pull off,” Hawkins explains. “There’s a new appreciation for virtuosity, and I’m all for it. That’s why bands like Polyphia and Sleep Token have exploded. The way we think about the guitar and what the instrument is supposed to do has changed.”

Gene Gallagher is also a musician to enlighten his father on some of the heavier acts that rose to prominence at the same time the Manchester indie rockers were conquering the world. It’s steady progress.

“Heavy guitar music – that’s what I like,” he says. “My dad wasn’t fond of the grunge stuff, but I made him come around to it as he got older.”

It is over three years since Tim Henson found himself at the heart of the boomer bends backlash – a term he first coined off-hand, during Rick Beato’s modern guitar discussion with Misha Mansoor and Tosin Abasi – yet feathers continue to be ruffled.

Now Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, prompted in a new interview with Rolling Stone’s Music Now podcast, has added his two cents to the debate.

“I love that. Is he gonna call Eddie Van Halen a boomer guitar player?” responds Hammett, when he’s asked what he thought of the term. [The US Census Bureau defines Baby Boomers as those born “between mid-1946 and mid-1964” and EVH was born in 1955 - Ed]

Nonetheless, the Metallica man is (mostly) effusive in his praise for Henson’s playing.

“I really like his style. It's really unique, and in terms of technique, it's amazing,” Kirk raves, adding: “It's the age old question, how relatable is it? It's good to listen to three or four times, but can you really relate?”

“Sometimes people just want to listen to music and not feel challenged. Some people, sometimes people just want to feel raw emotion. Is he hitting on raw emotion? No, it's so complicated. It's a very distinct emotion that he's shooting for,” Kirk argues.

“Therefore, how accessible is it on a larger scale? It's only accessible to people who like that, or can understand that. It's a very small category of people. That's absolutely fine if he wants to reach that category of people.”

“It's amazing playing, but at the end of the day, people want something that's comforting and satisfying, and is not that hard,” contends Hammett.

“They're great at what they're doing. But I also know that sound, only a certain amount of people have patience for that, or even the musical temerity to actually understand the breadth of it,” continues the Metallica guitarist.

“I love watching him play, but man, after a while, I'm probably gonna go and put on a Jeff Beck album or Stevie Ray Vaughan or maybe put on the Misfits or something. I’ll tell you, I'll get more out of a Misfits album, singing along and screaming and yelling, then I'll do out of something really technically challenging.”

Tim Henson might point out that the “very small category of people” who can enjoy Polyphia’s music is rapidly ballooning. This summer the band will support System of a Down and Korn in US stadiums, and they receive high billing at European festivals.

“In France, we were playing Hellfest, and we were like, third from headlining, and there was, like, 80,000 people there,” Tim recently told Guitar World.

Henson acknowledges, though, that stadium music has different demands than music written for smaller venues.

“It made us realize, like, ’Hey, we should start composing for it to work in these situations of 80,000-plus people,’” Henson said. “I don’t want to say tone it down in the technicality department, but sonically, making sure that it can work.”

Hammett, for his part, acknowledges that he appreciates technical like Allan Holdsworth. “I love all that really fucking complicated shit,” he admits. “You know, some people just want just raw energy or raw emotion on a plate, and they want it now, and that's what I think we deliver in droves.”

Henson has previously responded to the controversy over his comments. In 2021, he clarified “No one said you couldn’t bend!”

He is currently working on a new Polyphia album as well as a secret project with film composer Hans Zimmer.

Meanwhile, Raven, the band who took Metallica on their first US tour, recently told Guitar World that audiences initially struggled to understand the thrashers, so maybe that concept of accessibility can change over time...

With crossover progressive instrumentalists Polyphia, Tim Henson has redefined many things. The way an electric guitar can be played. The genres that can be combined in the name of shred. Heck, even the role of the guitar in contemporary music.

It’s why big-name composers like Hans Zimmer have his number on speed dial, while his contemporaries – from acoustic trailblazer Marcin and djent-soul wunderkind Manuel Gardner Fernandes to bona fide legends like Steve Vai – are lining up to work with him.

Henson’s efforts have shaken up the gear world, too. Look at the unprecedented success of his nylon-string signature guitar, the Ibanez TOD10N. Or his Neural DSP plugin, which proudly features a multivoicer effect that humanizes your guitar sound.

So when the virtuoso turned his hand to signature strings, you knew he was going to ask for something out of the ordinary from the unsuspecting engineers at Ernie Ball.

“I was just like, ‘Well, I don’t like it when I’m playing a harmonic, and then I hit the low string super-hard, and then it overpowers the harmonic while the notes are ringing together,” he explains of his “unreasonable” request.

A nylon set has also launched alongside the 9.5-gauge electric strings, although the two are more similar than you might expect…

“It just feels more like an electric guitar,” he says of the nylon strings. “It’s blasphemous to say that for all the acoustic players out there! But I started on electric guitar, and I was like, ‘Well, I want the timbre of an acoustic instrument, but I want to play the same riffs.”

But we’re not just here to talk about strings. When we sit down with Henson at NAMM 2025, he’s gearing up for an intense schedule of signings across a sea of brand booths, all the while checking out new gear (he has a DigiTech Hammer-On in his hand as he enters Ernie Ball’s private video suite – we can only imagine what he’ll cook up with that).

Beyond his show commitments, Henson is busier than perhaps he’s ever been. As word has spread of his talents, he’s found the scoring work piling up. Meanwhile, Polyphia are shaping up their fifth new album and the guest collabs (and new guitars) that entails; there’s a solo record on the way; and the small matter of a run of stadium shows supporting System of a Down.

Henson is down to talk about all of it – including the state of guitar in 2025, the players he has his eye on and his recent spiritual awakening. What follows are the highlights from our interview (you can watch the full thing below).

Your playing has featured in a bunch of film and TV projects recently, including Ultraman: Rising and Cobra Kai. What are the greatest challenges with that kind of work?

“With Polyphia, me and Scott [LePage] are the ones that make the final calls about anything, and when you’re working on someone else’s project, it is someone else’s project. [laughs]

“That’s always like a fun challenge to work within the parameters of somebody else’s vision. With Ultraman, for example, the movie on Netflix, Scott [Stafford], the composer, just set me up to thrive, really. Every time I would send him something, he’d be like, ‘This is great. Do more.’ And I was like, ‘You want more? Because I’ve been holding back – like, I can give you more,’ you know. They normally never tell me that!

“There’s so much shred throughout that movie, and then also, lots of fun stuff that I got to do with the guitar – onomatopoeia playing in the sense of, like, there’s a scene where Ultraman gets knocked back. He’s fucking scraping his nails in the concrete. And so I got to pick scrape on those and all sorts of stuff like that is super-fun and interesting.

“Oh, and here’s another really cool thing: when you’re scoring to picture, you’ve got this musical theme that takes a certain amount of time, but you also have to make it work by the time that this punch lands. Sometimes that’s just not within the BPM, right?

“As I was learning this, I was like, ‘Oh, there’s, like, seven bars of 4/4, and then on the eighth bar, it’s 3/4, because that’s when that punch landed.’ And so you have to learn to make a phrase that sounds complete, ending one beat before it should. You either play before or after the barline to just make it work. It was really interesting to do that.”

You posted a picture with Hans Zimmer on Instagram recently, so I’m assuming this is leading up to something with the maestro…

“Man, it was super-cool to go over there. I walk in and Hans has me sit down, and his studio is gorgeous. And he goes, ‘Let’s just get down to business. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.’ And I was like, ‘That is so flattering.’ And he pulls up… well, I’m not gonna go into too many details about all the stuff, but, you know, fingers crossed that all these things come into fruition. And then the next time you interview me, I can tell you all about the process.

“But it’s such a flattering thing to know that Hans has been thinking about my playing and in the sense of the things that he’s working on. So yeah, shout out Hans Zimmer. Dude’s incredible and just such, such a nice guy, and the most amazing studio I’ve ever been to.”

And how’s the new Polyphia shaping up?

“OK, so we’ve been working on album five. We’re still working on it. I’m also working on my solo record during the process. But, yeah, it’s heavy. [laughs] It’s heavy. So that’s exciting for us, and I think last year was really eye-opening for us in terms of how we should start composing for the live performance.

“Because last year we did our first festival circuit in general. We’d just been passing on the festivals until we felt like it was the right time. In France, we were playing Hellfest, and we were like, third from headlining, and there was, like, 80,000 people there. It was incredible. But it was really like, ’Oh, we’re playing Playing God to 80,000 people. And I have no idea what this sounds like to the 55,000th person way in the back there!’

“It made us realize, like, ’Hey, we should start composing for it to work in these situations of 80,000-plus people.’ And so we’re trying to, obviously, bring more energy by making it heavier. And then – I don’t want to say tone it down in the technicality department, but sonically, making sure that it can work and just be executed really well.

“Because, you know, playing a nylon-string to 80,000 people is a little like, you know, when you think of a nylon-string, you think of a dude in a coffee shop, right? So, it’s a little disconnect there. So, yeah, we’re excited to hone that in to really make the music bigger and just for that kind of audience now.”

How’s that going to affect you in terms of playing and gear? Is that more distortion? Is that seven- and eight-strings?

“Yeah, lots of eight-string. We’re playing baritones and stuff, too. We’re just making new guitars that don’t exist for the sole purpose of writing something really, really cool with it, so that if you want to learn it, you’re gonna have no choice but to buy that guitar! [laughs] You know, it’s the Playing God treatment, right?

“And, yeah, you know, more distortion… lots of sound design. We’ve really been locking in with that. Last year, I got the pleasure to go jam with Mike Dean. He’s the dude that’s behind all the synth sounds of the Kanye West records and all, the big, big hip-hop records. So getting to be around that, and then working that into our music… It’s coming out really cool. So I’m very excited to say the least.”

A new Polyphia record means new guests. Is there anyone you’ve been working with lately?

“We have one with Serj [Tankian] from System of a Down, and we just finished a second Babymetal collab – that’s for their record, though, and we were working on one to send them for our record. So hopefully we’ll make that one come to fruition.

“We’re about to book a whole bunch of sessions throughout the year as checkpoints. So then we’ll be able to tell where we are in the record more. Because right now it’s just writing and throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. So there’ll be organization sessions in which we can then kind of decide, ’Oh, hey, this would be really cool if we got this person or whoever,’ you know.

“Remember That You Will Die was very much a showcase of range for us, where we’ve got songs like ABC, which is a J-pop song, and then songs like Bloodbath, where it’s with Chino [Moreno] and super-heavy, and songs like Playing God with nylon-strings. And songs like The Audacity, which is crazy jazz.

“So for this record, rather than kind of like being all over the place in terms of a range showcase, we’re more pinpointing the sound and really going deeper into it, rather than wider, if that makes sense.”

You mentioned a solo album as well. What is that going to be like?

“You know, it’s interesting, because when I do these sessions with my friends and I tell them, ‘Hey, there’s two records we can work on: mine, and we can work on the Polyphia record.’ And I’ll play them the Polyphia record, and then I’ll play them mine. And they always ask the same question: ‘What’s your record? Is this just Polyphia minus three dudes or…’

“And I never had an answer, but I recently played it for my friend Johan. And he was like, ‘Oh, no. This is different. This is great. This is a whole other thing.’ One of my friends was like, ‘This almost is like Tim the producer, as opposed to Tim the guitar player.’

“And, granted, guitar is, of course, the main thing on the record, but I just figured, if I’m going to make a solo record, I want to do it in the way that I would imagine like that, like Kanye makes his records, where what he wants to hear, he puts on his record.

“So he’ll go out and find the craziest samples and the craziest producers and whatever to really craft the sound that he has in his head. It’s a huge almost like executive producer role to find all the pieces and make it work.

“So, yeah, that probably tells you nothing about the music! But in the process, last year, I got to randomly have a spiritual awakening, simply because I had cold-turkey quit my antidepressants on tour, and kind of spiraled, because that’s what happens when you do that. I learned not to do that. [laughs]

“But as I spiraled down, and it just kept going lower and lower, I hit a point where I broke through the other side. And I really started going super-hard on meditation… and, you know, I was doing a lot of mushrooms. [laughs] So the music is very reflective of that on my solo record. That’s kind of the vibe.”

So meditative, mellow?

“I mean, yeah, there’s definitely mellow bits, for sure; there’s a lot more breathing room than on a traditional Polyphia record, you know? So, yeah, lots more, like, ebbs and flows, et cetera.”

You said Serj Tankian will be guesting on the new Polyphia, but before that sees the light of day, you’re opening for System of a Down at some huge shows. How are you feeling about that?

“I’m very, very excited. These are going to be, I think, the largest shows we’ve ever played. It’s six stadium shows, two nights back to back in each city. So I think that’ll be cool to just fly there for the weekend and play the shows and go home. [laughs]

“In the levels of being in a band, you’re in a van, and you go on tour for, like, nine months out of the year, and it’s really rough. And then eventually you just get to the point where you’re just like, ‘I guess we’ll just play the weekend,’ and then you play the weekend, and then you go live your life on the weekday, and then you go play the weekend again. So I’m very excited about that.

“And of course, you know, all my love to System of a Down and Serj for having this incredible opportunity to be able to play to that many people and to get to play with Deftones and Korn and Avenged Sevenfold. All of those are huge acts. It’s just a really awesome thing.”

To be playing those festivals and those shows with instrumental guitar music, some of it on nylon-string, is absolutely nuts. For someone in my position, it’s inspiring to see someone taking it to that next level. The last time we spoke was a long time ago. It was pre-pandemic, and you were talking about your mission to make guitar music cool again. Where do you think guitar music is now?

“I’d say guitar music got cool! You know, maybe we had a little bit to do with that, maybe we didn’t. Around that time, Eminem did the thing with MGK [Machine Gun Kelly], and kind of made him switch genres [the rap icon and Machine Gun Kelly had beef so fierce that MGK left the hip-hop world and turned his hand to guitar-forward pop-punk in 2020 – Ed]. And then MGK got a number one record with a guitar on the cover, which is really cool. So shout out MGK for making guitar cool again!

“Since then too, like, think about all the insane players that have come out, like Marcin, like RJ [Pasin]… there’s so many new insane guitar players. So I’d say that it’s really cool. [laughs]”

Are there any other guitarists in particular who are really impressing you at the moment?

“Dude, there’s that guy, Spiro [Dussias] – you know what I’m talking about. I don’t know how to say his last name. I just recognize the Instagram handle, but that guy is fucking crazy. And there’s definitely a few others that are escaping me.

“But as we start to book these sessions this year, to bring in all the incredible talent that is out there, to vibe them out on the new music, I’m definitely going to be hitting up Spiro just to see what kind of insanity he can bring. There’s lots of incredible stuff coming up talent-wise in the guitar world right now.”

Polyphia’s fourth album, Remember That You Will Die, took the Texas instrumentalists to viral heights that seemed impossible for virtuoso guitar music in 2022. Flanked by guests spanning Steve Vai to Deftones’ Chino Moreno and rappers Snot and Lil West, it was an eclectic collection, to say the least.

But as guitarist Tim Henson revealed exclusively to Guitar World, the band’s next effort will be more singular in focus – and it’s inspired by their desire to bring their hybrid brand of hyper-shred to bigger and bigger audiences.

“It’s heavy,” Henson told us at NAMM 2025 while promoting his new string collaboration with Ernie Ball. “That’s exciting for us, and I think last year was really eye-opening for us in terms of how we should start composing for the live performance.”

Last year saw Henson, Scott LePage, and co brave their first proper festival circuit, hitting up European institutions like Pinkpop, Rock Am Ring, and Hellfest.

By upping the heaviness, the group are hoping to bring more energy to their live sets to satiate riff-hungry festival crowds – and while Henson says he doesn’t want to “tone it down in the technicality department,” he does want to “make sure that it can work and just be executed really well.” And that may mean a little less of the Playing God-spotlighted nylon-string in future.

“Playing a nylon-string to 80,000 people is a little like… when you think of a nylon-string, you think of a dude in a coffee shop, right?” he says. “So, it’s a little disconnect there. We’re excited to really hone that in and really make the music bigger for that kind of audience now.”

As for the guitar approach, Henson has teased more distortion, more extended-range models – and the possibility of entirely new Ibanez signature guitars to accompany the release.

“[There’s] lots of eight-string. We’re playing baritones and stuff, too. We’re just making new guitars that don’t exist for the sole purpose of writing something really, really cool with it, so that if you want to learn it, you’re gonna have no choice but to buy that guitar! [laughs] It’s the Playing God treatment, right?”

But while Polyphia are going in more brutal directions, don’t expect them to back off on their genre-splicing production – Henson also emphasizes the record’s focus on sound design, inspired by recent jams with Kanye West collaborator and hip-hop synth production mogul Mike Dean.

If there’s one other thing you can bet on a Polyphia album having, it’s some big-name – and often surprising – collaborators, and you need only look to their forthcoming tour dates for a hint at who’s to come.

“We have one with Serj [Tankian] from System of a Down and we just finished a second Babymetal collab – that’s for their record, though, and we’re working on one to send them for our record. So hopefully we’ll make that one come to fruition.”

Polyphia are set to support System of a Down, alongside Korn, Avenged Sevenfold, and Deftones, with six enormous stadium shows in August/September this year. But in between they’ll be booking studio sessions to keep track of the record’s process and figure out just who else would make sense to hit up for a guest spot.

The band had previously name-dropped everyone from Zakk Wylde to Fall Out Boy, Meshuggah, and Thundercat as dream collabs. Whatever happens, we can expect a more focused effort.

“Remember That You Will Die was very much a showcase of range for us where we’ve got songs like ABC, which is a J-pop song, and then songs like Bloodbath with Chino, where it’s super-heavy, and songs like Playing God where it’s nylon-strings, and The Audacity, which is crazy jazz. For this record, rather than being all over the place, [we’re] pinpointing the sound and really going deeper into it, rather than wider.”

Sounds good to us. In the meantime, we can’t help but wonder if that renewed spotlight on brutality could finally see Henson’s oft-sighted signature eight-string become a reality. Make it happen, Ibanez…

Aside from his work with The Darkness, Justin Hawkins has built a steady reputation as a musicologist via his chosen pulpit of YouTube. As an avid commentator on all things music – and, by extension, all things guitar – Hawkins has had his eye on the rise of more technical players and bands over the past few years – and is now offering his two cents on why some of them have even managed to break into the mainstream discourse.

“It shows something interesting,” Hawkins tells Guitar World. “Part of it is down to the post-Covid world. People have spent more time with a guitar in their hands, trying to figure out how to play music because of the world stopping for a few years.”

The result? A renewed appreciation for more off-kilter and experimental players, who, in any other era, might have been deemed “too prog” – or, worse, “showing off.”

“Now people have more respect for bands like Sleep Token, who are doing something really interesting, complex, and difficult to pull off. There’s a new appreciation for virtuosity and I’m all for it. That’s why bands like Polyphia and Sleep Token have exploded. The way we think about the guitar and what the instrument is supposed to do has changed.”

As for his thoughts on where rock music is going? Well, Hawkins has plenty. “It’s a really exciting time for rock music,” he says matter-of-factly. “There’s still a lot of sewage pop being made by fucking idiots with laptops and talentless DJ cunts.

“That will never change, but it makes us guitar players look cooler because we’re actually doing something with our fingers. Being a virtuoso on an instrument made out of wood and steel is cool again! And thank God for that!”

Late last year, Hawkins teamed up with boutique English guitar manufacturer Atkin Guitars on a seriously relic’d signature guitar reminiscent of Eddie Van Halen’s storied Frankenstrat.

Guitar World's full interview with Justin Hawkins will be published in the coming weeks.

Cobra Kai has enlisted a series of stellar guitarists to soundtrack its all-out old-school brawls and action-packed sequences. Syncatto's Charlie Robbins contributed a flamenco-meets-classic-rock piece that accompanied the end of Season 6, Episode 6. Now, another contemporary guitar virtuoso has been revealed as part of the soundtrack: Polyphia's Tim Henson.

Armed with his signature Ibanez TOD10N guitar, Henson performed Furia de Panteras in Season 6, Episode 9 – another composition heavily influenced by flamenco guitar.

The piece’s name refers to the fictional Spanish world-class dojo competing in the Sekai Taikai, the show’s international karate tournament held on the world’s largest karate stage.

The show's scorers and soundtrack senseis, Leo Birenberg and Zach Robinson, previously spoke to Guitar World about the lengths they go to in ensuring the perfect soundtrack.

“The process is pretty similar for each episode,” explained Birenberg. “We sit down with the showrunners and have a meeting – it’s called a spotting session – and we’ll watch episodes.

“We usually work on two at a time, so we watch them together and go through every scene with the editors and say, ‘Should there be music here? What’s the music going to be like?’”

Robinson continued, “We’ll work with amazing guitar players like Andrew Synowiec, a session player in Los Angeles, and Myrone – he calls himself a ‘soft shredder,‘ and he’s very video game-influenced – and we’ll say, ‘You’re a master shredder. We want to hit this moment on screen with some type of arpeggio or shred lick,’ or whatever.”

This isn’t the first soundtrack Henson has been featured in. Earlier this year, the Polyphia virtuoso revealed himself as the guest guitar star shredding in Netflix's Ultraman: Rising.

Polyphia guitarist Tim Henson has teased what appears to be a new Ice White finish option for his signature Ibanez TOD10 electric guitar – not to mention a new eight-string variant of his trademark build. However, it’s led fans to speculate whether it hails the arrival of something much bigger.

Both instruments appear in Polyphia’s Ernie Ball Big Sound video – the first in a new series of luxuriously-shot and produced artist sessions by the renowned string firm.

The clip looks and sounds great, but it’s Henson’s now ice-white TOD model, complete with striking black hardware for a direct inversion of its ebony fretboard and Tree of Death inlay, that catches the eye.

The TOD10 guitar first launched in 2022 alongside co-guitarist Scott LePage’s KRYS10, and it was given a long-craved-for seven-string release earlier this year.

In the new video, both guitars are put through their paces, with a wall of Marshall stacks behind them as they weave their way through the licks and grooves of Genesis, Neurotica, and Chimera.

Most intriguingly of all, the latter track sees Henson playing an eight-string version of the new-look white TOD build – which, to be clear, looks notably different to the stalled Tim Henson eight-string signature we previously reported.

As such it has left fans asking questions about the possibility of production runs for the featured instruments and debating whether this is a simple expansion of the Indonesian-made TOD10’s finish options, or perhaps evidence of the much-rumored Japanese Henson signature build, the Prestige TOD100.

Henson reportedly told a fan that the eventual TOD100 production model would be offered in white and others have speculated over a late 2024 arrival for the Japanese run. However, we should stress that while an exciting prospect, this is currently little more than Reddit gossip and is in no way confirmed by either Henson or Ibanez.

We’ll have to wait to know for certain then, but in the meantime the clip has plenty else to keep us entertained, with plenty of wah-lathered moments and whammy bar (and pedal) tricks across the video.

Of course, this isn't the first time a Polyphia guitarist has been seen rocking a crisp white axe. LePage has recently teased a frosty and sharp-looking Ibanez Xiphos, having touted an all-black model alongside Steve Vai in the music video for Ego Death.

Meanwhile, work on the next Polyphia album is well underway with Henson’s favorite guitarist heavily involved, and an interesting array of guests being teased and confirmed by the band.

The two guitarists have also given players their top tips for getting to grips with modeling amps as they talk through the biggest problems they faced when going digital for the first time.

Tim Henson has revealed his favorite new guitar player – and it’s an artist he’s already working with on new Polyphia and solo records.

“My favorite new band is RJ Pasin. He’s not really a band, but more of a producer, guitar player, but he’s awesome, so shoutout RJ,” Henson says in a video interview with Kerrang!

“The dude is so cracked, it’s insane – at sound design, he just comes up with the most insane sounds you’ve ever heard. We were working with him a lot on my solo record, as well as the new Polyphia record, so I’m excited to mash those sounds together.”

Pasin is known for his glitchy approach to guitar playing, chopping up riffs to create a fresh sound that fuses heavy guitars and EDM.

In May, Henson introduced Pasin to his fans via a guitar cover of singer and rapper Tommy Richman's viral hit Million Dollar Baby. In the video, Pasin can be seen wielding a D'Angelico Deluxe Atlantic, with Henson opting for his Ibanez TOD10 signature guitar.

Pasin has been making waves with his latest release, Lobster, which has gone viral on TikTok and clinched the number 18 spot on the Billboard TikTok Chart. He has also worked with Bring Me The Horizon on their track Top 10 Statues That Cried Blood from their seventh studio album Post Human: Nex Gen.

In a 2017 interview with Raver Rafting, Pasin talked about how he started his guitar journey: “I started playing classical piano against my own will at age 5. Somewhere along the line, I picked up guitar because I started to get into heavier music like hardcore and metal. Eventually, I started playing in a post-hardcore band, Murder She Wrote, where I played a synthesizer and guitar at the same time.

“This is when I really started getting into sound design and experimenting with different techniques for our music. I soon realized the sounds I was making on my microcord didn’t even touch what I could be making on my computer, and that’s when I really got into electronic music and branched off on my own to pursue it.”

As for Henson, he recently confirmed that he's behind the guitar-heavy soundtrack of the Netflix movie Ultraman: Rising.

When Polyphia released Playing God in 2022 – a song that gave fans a glimpse of Tim Henson's elusive new Ibanez nylon-string model – it proved to be a huge hit.

It was the perfect springboard for the launch of what was revealed to be Henson’s signature nylon-string electric acoustic, the Ibanez TOD10N, a year later, which subsequently became Reverb's best-selling acoustic of 2023.

Now, Ibanez has released the TOD10NL, a left-handed model that extends the love to the lesser catered-for lefties – even if it arrived some 14 weeks after a miniature version, modeled by Henson’s dog on Instagram.

A thin, modified FRH-bodied build with fan bracing, it is made from a solid Sitka spruce top and sapele back and sides.

It features a 22-fret walnut fretboard emblazoned with Henson's eye-catching Tree of Death inlay design, and a C-shape nyatoh neck – all the same specs that made the rightie model so popular.

Its sleek design is iced with a walnut bridge and gold classical tuners, with its tones ushering out from a Fishman S-Core pickup and augmented with Ibanez's AEQ210TF preamp with an onboard tuner.

The pickup is active, so a 9V battery is a requirement, but well worth it for an authentic-sounding nylon that benefits from the thin, speed-friendly genetics of an Ibanez electric guitar.

The Ibanez TOD10NL is available today and costs $699.99. As with the right-handed version, it is only available in Transparent Black.

Jump on over to Ibanez for more information.

In related Polyphia guitar news, Henson's fellow riff-maker Scott LePage has teased a stunning all-white Ibanez Xiphos signature model.

If you happened to catch Netflix’s new animated flick Ultraman: Rising at any point this week, you may have found yourself feeling slightly in awe of the soundtrack.

That may have especially been the case for one particular scene, which involved a fair amount of climatic action – action accompanied by some pretty insane guitar work.

Such an assumption would be true: Tim Henson has confirmed he was the electric guitar player who shredded on the blockbuster.

The Polyphia virtuoso revealed his identity guest guitar star in a new video that showcased his contributions as he played along to the scene in real time.

“Very proud to announce my involvement on Ultraman: Rising!” he wrote in the video’s description. “This is the first film I've had the privilege of working on.

“Thank you Shannon Tindle for making this happen and thank you Scot Stafford for your guidance and the invitation to work on your beautiful score.”

In the video, Henson demonstrates just how applicable his extended techniques are in the world of film, using almost every trick in his arsenal to punctuate the on-screen action.

That opening dive bomb to illustrate the protagonist descending in flight? Dead-on. That pick string scrape when Ultraman is in pain? Very clever indeed.

Illustrative soundbites aside, the piece – recorded using both the Ibanez TOD10 and Ibanez TOD10N – is littered with absurd displays of Henson’s virtuosity. That sweep picking grand finale, which soundtracks the climax of the fight, is so, so clean.

“When I play guitar, it sounds like a guitar,” commented Stafford, Ultraman's composer. “Ultraman needed a SUPERHERO. Enter Tim Henson. Tim: insanely fun working with you. So grateful. You elevate not just the soundtrack, but the whole film.”

Henson can be heard elsewhere on the Ultraman: Rising soundtrack, specifically on Batter Up!, Neronga, and Legends Are Human.

Netflix has really stepped up its guitar soundtrack game recently. Last year, it was confirmed Marcin – the acoustic guitar wizard who is reinventing the percussive fingerstyle genre – had featured on the One Piece series.

Now Henson has joined the growing crop of progressive guitar heroes to soundtrack some Netflix action, we can’t help but wonder who could be next.

Tosin Abasi thumping his way through a larger-than-life sci-fi picture? Or how about Manuel Gardner Fernades laying down some filthy prog rock progressions on a thriller? Bring it on, Netflix.

Ultraman: Rising is streaming now on Netflix.

Guitar World has noted a recent trend of metal players stepping away from metal-looking guitars – but it seems Scott LePage is the exception to the rule.

The Polyphia virtuoso has been spotted playing what looks to be a signature version of the radical Ibanez Xiphos for a playthrough of his Bloodbath solo. Noticeably, it appears to be modded with some modern accoutrements.

First introduced in 2007 as the successor to the Axstar of the '80s, the X-shaped instrument oozes heavy metal panache. The mods on the LePage model, then, are very interesting – and it's hard to look past the ivy-like inlay design that adorns its 24-fret fingerboard and its sleek, Polyphia-flavored finish.

The seven-string guitar sports a beveled body, bringing it closer to its first generation of models, and two humbuckers that Guitar World safely assumes are his signature Fishman Fluence Custom Series pickups.

The presence of a second toggle switch – alongside the standard pickup selector – for selecting different voices further solidifies that assumption, with one knurled Master Volume dial the only other control jutting out of the body of this ultra-clean axe.

It's also apparent that LePage has opted against the original's Floyd Rose tremolo in favor of what appears to be a Gotoh T1502 bridge, which can be found on his existing Ibanez signature, the KRYS10.

LePage doesn't utter a word during the video but gives viewers a good eyeful of guitar to whet the appetite.

The guitarist’s love affair with the Xiphos can be traced back to the music video for Polyphia's Steve Vai-propelled track Ego Death from 2022’s Remember That You Will Die. However, that model boasted a reverse headstock – a detail LePage has forgone with this ghostly creation.

There are no further details about LePage's mystery Xiphos, but rest assured Guitar World will share any forthcoming updates when they arrive.

In related news, LePage and his Polyphia bandmate Tim Henson recently shared their top tips for getting to grips with amp modelers.

Even some of the most steadfast tube amp traditionalists have made the switch from real amps to digital alternatives in recent years – The Edge and Jim Root, we’re looking at you – but for many making the leap, it can be a daunting experience.

Neural DSP's Quad Cortex, for instance, hinges its sales pitch on the prospect of “limitless sound design possibilities”, with 90+ amps, 100+ effects, and an IR count comfortably into the thousands.

For guitarists who are used to a two-channel tube amp at most, it's easy to get lost in those endless realms of tonal choice.

Speaking to retailer Thomann, Polyphia virtuosos Tim Henson and Scott LePage helpfully revealed their cheat sheet for navigating these extremely versatile machines.

“We were children getting the [Line 6] POD Farm,” Henson recalls. “It's pretty user-friendly and it goes hard, but going from the POD Farm to the [Fractal] Axe-Fx Ultra – you can change the tubes of the amp. There were so many details you could change that you really needed to know what the hell you were doing.”

LePage underscores that the “moral of the story is, 'Don't overthink it,'” as both electric guitar maestros learned to trust presets and the boffins who took the time to make them.

“User error is what happened when we tried to get in there and do all the details... [but] they already did that for us – that's why they made presets,” says Henson.

“So many of our songs [use presets]. Like G.O.A.T, I think it was recorded on preset 41 [of the Axe-Fx Ultra]. It was just called ‘Boutique.’ That's all it is; that tone is just the preset. Sometimes you just need a preset, you don't need to press any buttons – if it sounds good, it sounds good.

“We were like, ‘What’s the difference between the POD Farm and the Axe-Fx? This one's $200 and this one's $2,000 so clearly this one has to be 10 times better.’” he expands. “That was the logic. Then you do the thing and you realize it’s all about whoever is behind it, not the product itself.”

“I've learned so much about these things, and I still know so little,” LePage says of the vast variables that modeling amps boast. That’s why he feels presets shouldn’t be ignored.

“If you have a modeler or a plugin and you don't know what to do with it, I would say the presets are presets for a reason. They sounded good to someone somewhere.”

However, he adds one more thing players should be aware of: “Some presets are specifically designed to go through an amp, and some are specifically designed to mock an amp,” meaning guitarists should figure out what each preset's intention is in order to get the best out of it.

In other Polyphia news, Tim Henson recently singled out the one metal album beginner guitarists should learn. The band also announced they’ll be back in the studio to finish a new album after the festival season, with some surprise collaborations in store.

Polyphia's next album will feature Babymetal, the band has confirmed, with some other high-profile names also expected to join in with their forthcoming fretboard-sizzling shenanigans. 

The prog metal outfit's latest album, Remember That You Will Die, helped propel the band to even greater heights, and featured a raft of guest stars, including electric guitar virtuoso Steve Vai and Deftones vocalist Chino Moreno. 

Speaking to Rock Sound at Download Festival 2024, the band’s two guitarists Tim Henson and Scott LePage confirmed the record’s collaborative theme will continue with its follow-up. 

Japanese kawaii metal sensation Babymetal have already signed up, and a few other heavy guitar legends have also been tapped as potential collaborators.

“At the minute we're playing with sound design and that's very, very fun,” Henson says of the album’s writing process. “Features for the next one confirmed are Baby Metal; we just met Zakk Wylde so we're gonna ask him [laughs] and give him a three-minute long session and let him rip.

“We've been talking to Serj [Tankian] from System Of A Down. We love all kinds of music, so it's fun to reach into all these different things.” 

On the Babymetal song, Henson adds: “We have one done for them, but the stipulations this time are like, 'You have to give us one, too.'” 

Henson and LePage have worked with Babymetal before, helping the viral metal stars pen the track Brand New Day in 2019. The song has racked up nearly five million Spotify streams, with the fruitful pairing now set for a return.  

Of other dream collaborations, LePage name-dropped Fall Out Boy –  “who wouldn't want that?!” he beams –  as well as Meshuggah. Henson, meanwhile, has previously spoken about his desire to work with Thundercat – could the bass player be set to feature on their next record? 

Asked when fans can expect to hear new music from the band, Henson is coy. 

“Everything's in the demo stage. [After the tour] we get to go home and write, which is our favorite part of the job,” he says. “I don't want to give a [release] date because every time I do it ends up not being that and album five becomes a myth.”  

Recently, Henson featured on a new single from acoustic guitar virtuoso Marcin, and named the Black Sabbath album that’s ideal for beginner guitarists to learn.

Tim Henson has said learning Black Sabbath’s Paranoid by ear played a huge role in his development as an electric guitar player – and every beginner guitarist should take the time to study it.

The Polyphia string-botherer has turned the guitar world upside down with his brain-melting virtuosity and mind-blowing techniques, but he was once a young, inexperienced, and aspiring guitarist. 

In a recent conversation with Avenged Sevenfold bass player Johnny Christ alongside Polyphia bandmate Scott LePage, Henson opened up on his early days as a guitar player, which were heavily influenced by Sabbath.

“My dad taught me the pentatonic scale and the G, C, D, A, B, and F chords – basic shapes,” he recalls (via Ultimate Guitar). “Then he pointed me in the direction of Black Sabbath and said, 'Go learn by ear.'”

Henson and LePage then set about mastering the riff to Paranoid, which heralded from a larger record rich in riff royalty.

“Honestly, that record is such a wonderful thing for a beginner guitar player, because [it has] lots of cool-sounding riffs, and they're easy to figure out. And there's gratification [for] a new player there.” 

For the pair of budding riffers, there was something accessible about Iommi’s riffs when it came to navigating their fretboards by ear. It also gave them a greater appreciation of his playing style. 

“Those guitar parts are incredible and they're cool as hell, and they make sense on the fretboard,” Henson goes on. “There's a clear path to follow, in the way the fingers move in relation to the fretboard. 

“Scott and I have all the respect for everything that Black Sabbath has done. We wanted to learn the music because it was sick. As a beginner guitar player... most of the riffs are pentatonic.

”I think it's just a great starting point if you want to learn something by ear, and you're just starting out with guitar. Paranoid is a great one to go with. Like, how many people's first riff is Iron Man, right?” 

Having tackled Iommi’s riffs, Henson then started to dissect the music to figure out what made them sound so good – and Iron Man was particularly scrutinized. 

“Dude, the fifth from that power chord, it brings a sense of finality,” he beams. “It just locks it into the one and the five. [It’s] just awesome.” 

Henson also gave an additional tip for guitarists starting out on their path. While learning to rely on his ear was a valuable exercise, so too was watching other players. 

“YouTube really taught me how to play guitar,” the guitarist concludes. “I'd get on YouTube, look at people playing guitar, and mimic their movements. Prior to that, I don't know what people did – you'd have to buy DVDs, right?” 

In other Henson news, he recently guested on a new single from fingerstyle acoustic guitar virtuoso Marcin, contributing some fiery licks to Classical Dragon.  

Back in 2020, Unprocessed guitarist Manuel Gardner Fernandes found himself caught in the eye of a storm and going viral for all the wrong reasons. 

He’d been accused of faking his videos by a fellow YouTuber, and though there was no truth to the insults hurled in his direction, it was still a disheartening experience.

So he did exactly what was needed to prove the doubters wrong; he threw himself into writing new music and hit the road to establish himself as very much the real deal.

“I decided to avoid staying in my bedroom like a lot of Instagram guitarists,” he tells Guitar World. “So I recorded and toured with my band. People could see I’m actually playing this stuff, unless I’m using some crazy plugin that does everything for me! I’d like to think these days I’m more associated with my band than social media.”

Last December, Unprocessed released their third album, ...And Everything In Between, which the guitarist describes as a return-to-roots kind of record that revisits their love for metalcore.

The German quartet made it their mission to hone in on the music that inspired them early on, roping in Polyphia trailblazers Tim Henson and Scott LePage to guest on tech-metal rollercoaster Die on the Cross of the Martyr.

“I wanted to make something dark but still with that technical edge,” he says. “Because we abandoned heavy stuff last time, it was very experimental with modern pop elements. We’ve toured with Polyphia a bunch, and there’s a lot of respect there. It sometimes feels like they believe in us more than the rest of the music industry.”

The main instrument for the sessions was an eight-string Ibanez RG Custom, with some extra flavors from other Ibanez models like a Custom AZ and guitar/bass hybrid, plus a Telecaster for warmer clean tones.

Interestingly, having relied on digital gear like Guitar Rig and Axe-Fx in the past, this time round he found himself longing for organic sounds to breathe more life into the band’s futuristic wall of noise. Though it wasn’t exactly an old-school rig in the strictest sense, either.

“I wanted that tube sound back, so I used a Synergy amp with the IICP module,” he says. “Everything we’ve recorded before sounded digital and almost heartless, so I went back to analog. Synergy are still very modern – their technology is a fusion of new and old.

“I think digital rigs can be bad from a production standpoint. The master can look like a sausage on the computer, so squashed! This time it had to sound real.”

• ...And Everything In Between is out now.

When discussing the next generation of progressive metal guitar players who are taking the electric guitar to new heights, the names of Tim Henson, Scott LePage and Manuel Gardner Fernandes immediately come to mind – and for good reason.

Through Polyphia, Henson and LePage have redefined prog metal instrumentalism, thanks to a virtuosic blend of conventional shred skills, near-unprecedented fretboard creativity and boundary-pushing chops that seem to know no limits.

It’s a similar case for fellow prog titan and Ibanez endorsee Fernandes, whose distinctly percussive fingerstyle playing approach is currently heading up the musical exploits of German outfit Unprocessed, who recently brought together the three aforementioned electric guitar heroes for one epic track.

Titled Die on the Cross of the Martyr and lifted from Unprocessed latest studio album, the four-and-a-half-minute guitar masterclass pits the trio of generational talents in a no-holds-barred battle of the ‘boards, delivering late (but very, very valid) contenders for 2023’s finest guitar solos.

Perhaps the remit of the observation should be extended somewhat, because Die on the Cross of the Martyr features some of the finest progressive guitar playing of the past 12 months, period.

Being an Unprocessed track, Fernandes takes the lead with some furious accented tapping lines – decorated with just the right amount of harmonics and whammy bar wiggles – which merely get more and more mind-bending as the track progresses.

After following up his intricate leads with a flurry of loose riffs, Fernandes gives the floor to Henson, who traverses the eight strings of his chosen axe – as seen in the separate playthrough video below – for a run of mesmeric melodies and furious open-string beatdowns.

LePage brings the track to a close with the help of some tight Whammy pedal action, leaping registers as quickly as he leaps fingerboard positions by way of some box-bending scale runs and dizzying bends.

Like we say, it’s a pretty sensational piece of guitar music, and it’s prompted some understandably excitable observations from viewers. One commenter, for example, perhaps summarized it best by saying: “3 God-tier guitarists on one track like this. God damn what a time to be alive!”

But that’s precisely what the response the trio were after. In a press statement, Unprocessed labeled their new track as “the ultimate guitar nerd’s wet dream”.

What’s perhaps just as interesting as the chops is Henson’s guitar of choice: a curiously styled eight-string Ibanez that seemingly takes visual and functional cues from his recently released Fishman-loaded signature guitar, the TOD10.

Now, we know Henson is a fan of eight-string guitars – in fact, he once developed a signature eight-string that never made it to market – so is the first sign of yet another addition to Henson’s signature arsenal?

Well, that tidy Tree of Death fingerboard inlay would certainly make this model a shoo-in for Henson’s current run of signature models. After all, both the TOD10N and TOD10 flash the ornamental fingerboard design, so it would make sense for any future models to do the same.

Whatever the case, that's a whole conversation for 2024. For now, we plan to close out the year with Die on the Cross of the Martyr on repeat.

Unprocessed's new album, ...and everything in between, is available now.

For most guitarists, the general appeal of artist signature gear is being able to play the same instruments and duplicate the same sounds used by the artists themselves.

However, truly great signature gear can also help guitarists find their own voice and can be embraced by players from a variety of genres, like the Gibson Les Paul or, more recently, the EVH Wolfgang. 

Fishman’s new Fluence Signature and Custom Series humbucking pickup sets developed with Polyphia guitarists Tim Henson and Scott LePage will certainly appeal to fans of Polyphia’s innovative multi-textural tones, but even guitarists ranging from conservative traditionalists to adventurous progressives will be enticed by the impressive sonic character and versatility that these pickups offer.

We evaluated each set separately installed in a pair of virtually identical Ibanez AZ42P1 guitars with basswood bodies, roasted maple necks and rosewood fingerboards. Switches consisted of a three-way pickup selector and a three-way mini toggle for selecting each voice. Both test models also had Fishman’s optional lithium ion battery pack.

Features

The Tim Henson Signature Series set is designed to provide acoustic-style clean tones in addition to a wide range of full humbucking and single-coil tones for heavier electric textures. 

The Scott LePage Custom Series is more electric-oriented, providing vintage and hot-rodded humbucker and single-coil tones as well as voices optimized for clean tones. 

Both pickups feature Alnico V bar magnets and are available with either black or white bobbins, but the Hensons have 12 screw polepieces while the LePages have six slug and six screw polepieces that are gold plated. Both sets are direct replacements for standard-size humbuckers.

The Tim Henson set offers a diverse range of tones and textures, including semi-acoustic. The bridge pickup’s voices consist of hot-rodded Classic with a 1.65Hz midrange peak (1), Henson’s enhanced humbucker with 2.3kHz and 480Hz peaks (2) and a 6kHz peak single-coil (3) that Henson usually uses combined with neck pickup single-coil voice. 

The neck humbucker’s voices include a thick, smooth humbucker (1), a 9.5kHz and 450Hz peak setting designed to replicate his electric-acoustic solidbody nylon string guitar’s tone when used with a clean amp setting (2) and a single-coil with a 4.2kHz peak (3) that he prefers in the aforementioned neck/bridge setting above.

Scott LePage’s set provides a versatile selection of electric guitar tones. The bridge pickup offers a vintage PAF voice with a 2.4kHz midrange peak (1), a classic hot-rodded voice with a darker 1.7kHz peak that still maintains outstanding clarity and definition (2) and slightly overwound single-coil voice with a 4kHz peak (3). 

The neck humbucker’s voices consist of a vintage PAF with 3kHz peak (1), an exclusive custom humbucker voice with 4.7kHz and 360Hz peaks with distinctive brilliant chime, full bodied mids and tight bass (2) and a vintage single coil with 5kHz peak (3).

Performance

Fishman Fluence electric guitar pickups in general are great for guitarists who prefer to employ a wide variety of tones without changing instruments, but with each of these sets the differences between voices can be so dramatic that it truly sounds like an entirely different guitar is being played. 

The 12 different voices provided by these two sets cover an incredible range. If you’re a session player who wants to minimize cartage, these two sets can cover a lot of ground with just two guitars. 

My favorite humbucker tones are a toss-up between the Henson’s enhanced bridge voice 2, which is tastefully punchy and well balanced, and the LePage’s vintage PAF voice 1, which has the aggressive yet sweet character players want from a good PAF. 

The single-coil tones are stellar as well, and while I found that the Henson set’s neck voice 2 didn’t quite deliver the nylon-string-style tones promised, I’m sure that Henson employs some clever tricks in his rig to accomplish that goal.

Specs

• PRICE: $289.95 / £329 (each set)
• FEATURES: Neck and bridge humbuckers, each with three switchable voices
• COLOR OPTIONS: Black, White
• CONTACT: Fishman

Polyphia are currently in the midst of their Remember That You Will Die tour, which has seen the band hop continents and stages as part of a mammoth prog metal expedition.

In each setlist thus far, Tim Henson and co have included a rendition of CKY’s 96 Quite Bitter Beings, but during a homecoming show in Texas back in April the quartet flirted with the idea of distancing themselves from heavy territory and going full-blown classic rock.

Thanks to newly released pro-shot footage from the evening – which captures the concert in its entirety – Henson and bandmate Scott LePage briefly pay tribute to Thin Lizzy by rifling through the climactic harmonized lick of The Boys Are Back In Town.

The quick-fire cover – helpfully labeled “random playing” by one commenter demarcating the setlist – came after the band’s performance of Icronic, and served not only as a nod to Lizzy legends Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson, but also to Polyphia's home state of Texas.

Unfortunately, those hoping the six-string interplay between the two Ibanez signature artists would pave the way for a fully fledged cover were left disappointed. 

We can’t imagine they felt down for too long, though: a classic Polyphia game of “sing the riff” was followed by a scorching run-through of Champagne.

Being pro-shot footage, the 65-minute film is an excellent insight into the energy, tones, onstage chemistry and downright absurd levels of virtuosity that is typical of a live Polyphia performance.

Both Henson and LePage’s newly released Ibanez signature electric guitars – as well as Henson’s TOD10N nylon-string – were wielded with flawless precision, and the sounds squeezed from their respective digital rigs were downright sublime.

Not only that, the two guitar masterminds showcased their improvisational side on numerous occasions throughout the 16-song setlist, which culminated in an epic rendition of Euphoria.

This isn't the first time the band has tackled a guitar classic – last year, Henson and LePage performed Pantera's Domination in celebration of Dimebag Darrell's birthday.

Polyphia are set to hit the road again later this year for a headline North American tour, which kicks off in September.

Head over to the band's website for a full list of dates.

We’ve all heard Polyphia’s Playing God. The band’s 2022 comeback track that ushered in a new era of Tim Henson signature guitars by debuting the Ibanez TOD10N, the song was a virtuosic clinic of the highest order, and one of last year’s finest guitar tracks.

Learning the song on the instrument it was intended to be played on is hard enough, but YouTuber Charles Berthoud has taken things one step further: not only has he learned Playing God, he's completely transformed it into a six-string fretless bass masterclass.

Berthoud’s low-end pedigree is unquestionable, having built himself one of the most visible bass empires on social media. In the past, he's covered Slipknot’s Duality, and has also recreated John Petrucci, Guthrie Govan, and (other) Tim Henson solos on the bass, with spectacular results.

His latest effort, though, raises the bar even further. With his custom-made Le Fay model in tow, Berthoud navigates his fretless fingerboard with exquisite ease, making light work of the percussive slap opening exchanges and harmonic chimes.

The lack of frets gives the cover a distinctly smoother vibe, but that doesn’t take away from the devastating effect of Berthoud’s arrangement: those pounding fingerstyle runs are executed immaculately. 

But that’s not the end of it – not only does Berthoud tackle the main riff, he nails that opening solo, complete with a ricochet of hammering lead licks and colorful two-hand tapping sequences.

Is it better than the original? Well, as guitarists, we’re slightly biased, but as a feat of bass playing there’s no denying it’s something special. We imagine playing that on a fretted bass is hard enough, but take frets out the equation? Berthoud is a braver soul than most.

Even those who don’t play bass will appreciate the sheer level of skill involved in Berthoud’s playing, and may even enjoy his version of Playing God as much as the original. Such observations will no doubt please Berthoud, who once told Bass Player he wanted his “music to appeal to people who don’t know anything about bass.”

In an earlier conversation with Bass Player, Berthoud commented, “It’s definitely a balancing act. I don’t want my music to only appeal to people who play bass. 

“I love those people, and I do want them to enjoy my music, but I also want my music to appeal to people who know nothing about bass, which is why I try to get some humor in there.”

It’s not the first time Berthoud’s bass antics have drawn attention. Last November, he led 200 bass players in a magical cover of Queen’s Under Pressure.

Polyphia’s Tim Henson and Scott LePage are poster boys for the digital amp generation, so it was something of a surprise to spot the genre-smashing virtuosos standing in front of a wall of Marshalls recently… and even more so to find the UK brand’s heads accompanying them onstage.

In a recent Instagram post, the band shared a photo of Henson, LePage and bassist Clay Gober posing at the Marshall factory in Bletchley, UK, with an array of heads and 4x12 cabinets behind them.

What’s more, two JCM800 heads were spotted atop the band’s wall of custom Orange cabinets for their show at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London on May 31. But as is often the case with Polyphia, not everything is as it seems.

For one, the band’s current rig is built around the Neural DSP Quad Cortex with automated patch changes, judging from the lack of pedals onstage. So a switch to a real amp would require a major overhaul of their live setup at this stage in a tour.

More tellingly, however, the group have been known to use tube amp power sections to drive their onstage 4x12s. Up until now, this was an Orange Dark Terror, but it looks as if this has now switched to the JCM800. You’ll note that LePage’s head has no cable running into the input – presumably, his signal is heading into the effects loop return on the rear to bypass the preamp.

“They fell in love with the sound of the 800s,” Marshall Product Specialist & Demonstrator Steve Smith explained. “They’re probably going to use them as power amps for their Quad Cortex for the response and feel.”

One piece of the puzzle remains, however: there is a cable running into the input of Henson’s JCM at that recent live date. Now, it’s not out of the question that Henson would test the amp live for a tone or two – after all, he used the JCM800 as a basis for the Lead sound in his signature Neural DSP plugin – but it would require a major adjustment to the band’s preset patch changes. We’ve reached out to Polyphia for clarification.

Regardless of how they’re using the amps, an Instagram clip from Marshall showed the pair plugged straight into JCMs at the iconic UK amp brand’s factory, and their tone was as gloriously crisp as ever – testament to those Fishman signature pickups they put out recently in their latest Ibanez models.

Given their high profile among guitarists, Polyphia are among today’s most prolific product endorsers, with their current roster including the likes of Ibanez, Fishman, Neural DSP, Orange, Marshall, Shure and Apogee.

Tim Henson – the guitarist of the progressive metal band Polyphia – combines complex guitar riffs, intricate rhythms, and an innovative approach to electronics and sound design to create a unique blend of progressive metal, jazz, trap, and K-pop music, resulting in a distinctive and cutting-edge sound. 

Born in 1993 in Texas, Henson started playing guitar at the age of 10 and now, at the age of 29, is a highly respected musician whose playing style is characterized by a virtuosic technique and intricate, melodic playing. 

He is known for incorporating a wide range of musical influences and techniques into his playing – including hybrid picking, tapping, harmonics, sweep picking, and jazzy chord progressions – to create a unique sound that is both technically impressive and emotionally rich. 

Polyphia's fourth and latest album, Remember That You Will Die, showcases this diversity with progressive pop songs like ABC, the alt-rock-flavored Bloodbath (which features Deftones’ Chino Moreno on vocals), and the technical guitar display Ego Death, which features a guest spot from Steve Vai.

In this lesson we will use hybrid picking, sweep picking, natural harmonics and tapping to create unique licks and riffs. 

The core of Henson's playing is a hybrid picking technique, which means using a pick to play the lower strings and the second, third, and fourth (marked as ‘m’, ‘a ‘and ‘c’ in the notation) fingers to pluck the upper strings with a fingerstyle approach. 

Every example uses a hybrid picking element, but Example 1 will act as an introduction to the technique if you are unfamiliar. The Polyphia sound uses fretted notes and open strings to create huge interval leaps, which are then pushed further with other techniques. 

Example 2 could be described as hybrid sweep picking and is performed with a downward pick sweep across the strings, with the highest note being played with a second-finger pluck. This has an added possibility of creating a variety in timbre with palm muted sweep-picked notes, followed by a louder, snappy final note.

Example 3 focuses on natural harmonics, which Polyphia use to create sudden, octave-jumping interval skips. The key to clean harmonics is to position your finger directly over the fret wire of the fret in question, unless you are searching for harmonics between the 1st and 3rd frets.

The final piece of the puzzle is tapping with fingers of both hands. Rather than the Van Halen-inspired arpeggio or scale-based tapping style, Henson uses picking-hand tapping to grab a single note or two here and there to integrate the effect of a contrasting tapped note attack into a riff or a lick. We also have fretting-hand tapping (marked in the music as squares, which are hammer-ons to a new string), which has a unique attack as well as freeing up the picking hand. 

Get the tone

Amp Settings: Gain 3, Bass 7, Middle 6, Treble 7, Reverb 2

Tim Henson is an Ibanez endorser and, while you might expect these examples to require heavy distortion, they are actually best played with a slightly compressed clean tone. 

But Henson also likes to use a nylon-string guitar for certain things, so you might want to give your fingers a little challenge by trying that. Add a little light reverb.

Example 1. Hybrid picking

Learn the chords of this Minor II-V-I first and play them with your pick on the sixth string and simultaneously pluck the three higher strings with your second, third, and fourth fingers. In between the chords play the licks based in A Minor Pentatonic (A-C-D-E-G) with hybrid picking as marked in the notation.

Example 2. Sweep picking

Form each chord shape with your fretting hand and use palm muting to keep the notes separated as you sweep pick across the strings. For the first three chords, sweep across the fifth, fourth, and third strings, then use your second finger to pluck the second string. For the final chord add the sixth string into the sweep, too.

Example 3. Natural harmonics

Play clean natural harmonics by lightly positioning your fingers directly over the fretwire and let the adjacent strings ring together wherever possible. Start bar 2 with a picking-hand tap, then pull-off before descending a B Minor arpeggio with fretting-hand tapping.

Example 4. Tapping with two hands 

Sweep pick this five-string A Minor arpeggio, then tap the 17th and 19th frets with your second and third fingers. Next, play a diminished shape followed by a mixture of fretting and picking-hand taps and octaves to create a seamless flow of notes.

Example 5. Mixing several techniques

Here we combine sweep picking, alternate picking, harmonics, open-string pull-offs and tapping for a lick with a variety of timbres. Play each section of the lick slowly to ensure clean execution before speeding up and linking it all together.

Some of the most influential guitar players have all attended the Berklee College of Music, with the prestigious music school boasting the likes of Steve Vai, John Scofield, Susan Tedeschi, St. Vincent and many more on its list of alumni.

It goes without saying, though, that a Berklee education is by no means a prerequisite for six-string success, with many guitarists of equal caliber finding their own path in the world of guitar music.

One name on that list of game-changing electric guitar players who didn’t go to Berklee is Polyphia’s Tim Henson – but it wasn’t for a lack of trying.

Speaking to Kerrang!, the progressive music virtuoso reflected on his early career aspirations and revealed he once set sights on studying in the classrooms once populated by the likes of John Mayer, Al Di Meola and John Myung.

Alas, he was turned down by Berklee – a decision that merely motivated him further to dive head first into his musical career and do a band “for real”.

“I didn't have a back-up plan,” Henson said. “It was just like, ‘Well… fuck.’ There was a week of depression, but after that, it was just like, ‘Okay, fuck college. Let's do this band for real.’”

Doing the band “for real” meant putting all his efforts into his music. With his parents thinking he was attending community college, Henson was instead “getting up at the fucking ass-crack of dawn” to sit in a Starbucks with a laptop to promote Polyphia’s music.

From there, Henson sought to raise funds for Muse – the band’s debut studio album – for which a $15,000 target was set. His parents, who by now had been filled in on Henson’s extra-curricular activities, were “pissed off” at the development, but would soon be appeased when Polyphia ended up raising more than double its funding target.

“We ended up raising like 33 grand,” Henson said. “That’s when my dad was… he wasn't pissed anymore. After that, he was like, ‘Okay, you guys could do this.’ I guess that was the moment that we all realized we could do this.”

All in all, it’s a pretty inspiring success story – from being turned away from Berklee College of Music to becoming one of the 21st century’s most forward-thinking fretboard masters, one who has not one, but three signature guitars – and a set of signature Fishman pickups – under their belt by the age of 29.

During his Kerrang! conversation, Henson also imparted some words of wisdom for aspiring musicians: “As long as, as an artist, you're you, you like what you're doing, you care about it, and you talk with it like you're proud of it, that's the best thing that you can do.”

One of the most surprising trends at this year’s NAMM Show was just how many of the most exciting products announced around the event were… pickups.

In recent months, Fender has channeled sought-after CuNiFe magnets into single-coil and P-90 formats, with great results. Seymour Duncan, meanwhile, debuted the Hyper Switch, giving players the ability to digitally ‘rewire’ their electric guitar pickup configuration via Bluetooth at the touch of a screen.

Elsewhere, EMG took active pickups to the Jazzmaster, and L.R. Baggs – which has a solid history when it comes to improving plugged-in acoustic tone – debuted the HiFi. The latter is a pickup system that costs $199, can be installed on an acoustic with peel and stick pads – and somehow sounds ridiculously good for it.

Meanwhile, the signature pickup has become increasingly ubiquitous, with Rabea Maasaad’s Bare Knuckle Triptych Strat set turning heads, alongside new signature models for Joe Bonamassa, Lari Basilio, Polyphia’s Tim Henson and Scott LePage and Josh Smith, to name a small sample.

Our reporter on the NAMM show floor also returned with tales of packed-out pickup stands – a notion that would once have been laughed out the room. 

One thing is clear: the attention of the retailers, influencers and other industry decision-makers is on all things pickup. So how did we get here?

Boom times for pickup makers

The answer is due to a combination of factors, namely: a change in the tech, an evolving economic context and shifting music-making habits.

A look at the history of pickup manufacturing will tell you that, for a very long time, very little changed. With a few exceptions – Wide Range humbuckers, active sets and, perhaps Hot Rails – we’ve essentially stuck to a ‘copper wire wrapped around magnets’ formula that hasn’t changed since the ‘50s. 

Indeed, you could make a good case that the majority of industry R&D has gone into trying to recreate those original units, whether it is Gibson’s P-90s and PAFs, or Fender’s vintage single-coil sounds. 

Recently, though – as evidenced at this year’s NAMM – there’s been an explosion in new options for pickup buyers. 

“We’ve absolutely seen an increase in interest in pickups,” confirms Brian McDonald, VP of Sales and Marketing at pickup stalwarts, Seymour Duncan. 

“Not just in overall sales, but the conversations with our customers across the various channels and the web analytics reveal an increase in research activity on SeymourDuncan.com, too. With bands getting out of the garage and back on the road, there’s an obvious opportunity there.”

A key development seems to have been the home recording/software boom and McDonald notes that “the proliferation of amp modeling seems to have created a ripple effect on everything in the signal path”. 

What’s more, it has allowed players to hear themselves (and their pickups) in greater detail than ever before, giving them the chance to reflect on their tone and also driving a quest for noise-reducing units. 

Advances in manufacturing, meanwhile, have enabled firms to cheaply tweak production lines and produce more experimental or signature products, while the ubiquity of affordable chip technology has opened up the possibility of genuinely new approaches to the pickup.

A leap forwards

In 2014, Fishman debuted the Fluence and Guitar World hailed it as “the first truly new electric guitar pickup system design in more than 80 years”. It marked a major technological step towards the boom we are now seeing.

The design uses tiny, precision-made coils that can be stacked and tuned to isolate frequencies, enabling the manufacturer to ‘voice’ the subsequent signal with far more intricacy and vastly reduced noise. 

Using integrated chips, they can also route through different combinations of coils to create multiple voices from the same unit.

“[We knew] that if we were going to move into this product category, we needed a platform that would create a paradigm shift in pickup technology,” comments Chris DeMaria, VP of Marketing and Artist Relations at Fishman.

“Solving inherent issues with traditional pickup design, combined with multiple voices in one pickup, seems to have resonated with players – [particularly those] who’ve been searching for a solution that offered versatility and performance.”

Notably, Fluence seems to have struck a chord with heavy players, as pickup designs can be easily replicated for seven- and eight-string guitars and/or generate higher outputs, without compromising the unit’s tonal characteristics. 

Traditional ‘overwound’ high-gain designs, in contrast, would often have to create a trade-off between certain frequency coverage and output. 

“It goes back to creating solutions for players,” says DeMaria, when we note the proliferation of Fluence signature sets. “We’ve been able to sit in our studio with the artist and, in real time, create voicings that perfectly match the idealized sound they’re looking for. Once those voicings are created with the artist, we can then reproduce it consistently in our manufacturing process. There’s not a dud in the bunch.’’

DeMaria confirms that Fishman have also seen increasing pickup sales in recent years, suggesting the size of the overall market is growing, rather than simply trading brands.

Power to the players

It’s not just the manufacturers making the products who deserve the credit for the current boom, though. The economy revolves around supply and demand – and it’s the musicians themselves who have created the latter.

McDonald makes an important point – noting that it’s not simply about the pickups themselves, but players are considering how they will interact with other new tech, be it flat-response speakers, software modelers or high-gain amps. 

“We’ve got a lot of young talent in our family – Lari Basilio, Josh Smith, Cory Wong, Mark Holcomb, Jared James Nichols, Wes Hauch and that’s just the signature artist side,” says McDonald. “Each of them will tell their story about what they were looking for. Strat tones in a Tele middle pickup, in Lari’s case. Something with more clarity for the Fractal rig, in Mark’s case.”

Basilio’s pickups are an interesting case in point, using traditional materials in a new combination, with Alnico V, IV and II magnets used in different positions to better balance the output from high to low strings.

DeMaria says he thinks players are also better educated these days. “There’s more information available online, in guitar media, and through social media,” says the Fishman VP.

“That has empowered players with knowledge and fueled their interest in exploring other pickup options. Players today seem to be able to better articulate their needs in terms of what they’re looking for in a pickup.”

We suspect the expanding tonal flexibility of modern pickups is also proving welcome with younger players, for whom genre and traditional listening habits have become largely irrelevant. 

Pickup the bill

Perhaps the largest factor in the new pickup boom, though, is simply the economic reality of life in 2023. 

Many new guitarists took up the instrument, or became invested, when they had a unique combination of spare cash and spare time as a result of the 2020 lockdown. Talk to any economic analyst about consumer spending habits now, though, and the headline point will be that we’re all poorer. 

“I think the pandemic downtime inspired a lot of people to pursue guitar and the nuances of tone,” summarizes McDonald. “[Now] the new players that have stuck with it are diving into the tone-searching phase of their journey. A lot of players we talk to have inexpensive guitars that they like and want to upgrade rather than replace. [It’s a] classic use case, but on a larger scale.”

Most of us – musicians included – have felt the pinch of inflation and had to cut spending on non-essentials to make up for increased food and fuel prices. On top of that, guitar firms have also been forced to raise their prices due to increases in material and labor costs. 

Boiling it all down: does the average player have a spare thousand dollars for a new guitar this year? Probably not. 

As we commented after NAMM, much of the guitar-making industry does not seem to have caught up with the cost-of-living crisis, but consumers and retailers are taking things into their own hands, realizing the tonal variety on offer from lower-cost mods and pickup swaps.

McDonald says he’s looking forward to seeing how players use the firm’s new HyperSwitch, for example, noting even “around the [Seymour Duncan] office, no two players used it in the same way”. 

At the same time, the Seymour Duncan VP maintains that the current boom is still inclusive of the more traditional options. “Something I keep front of mind,” he concludes, “is that there are players out there that haven’t yet experienced the tone and feel of the iconic pickups like the JB or Antiquities.”

Tradition and innovation in equal measure?

Clearly, the traditional formula isn’t going anywhere; instead, players now have a choice. DeMaria – perhaps surprisingly, given Fishman’s tech commitment – offers a similar sentiment: 

“Our industry straddles two worlds, and sometimes they can co-exist and sometimes not,” he says. “There’s tradition, heritage and history and there’s innovation and technology that keep things looking forward. There’s obviously a place for both.”

Nonetheless, he does offer a tantalizing glimpse into the future of Fluence. “I think in terms of what’s next, I imagine there’ll be more opportunities for customization – maybe just in colors and designs at first,” he posits.

“Hopefully [one day] we’ll get to a point where players can combine their favorite voicings from our entire range of pickups into their own custom Fluence pickup. Right now, the potential for Fluence seems limitless.”

Where will all this lead, then? Will it yield a new era of experimentation? Maybe. Will we see beautiful (not-yet-vintage) models carved up in the name of progress, as we did in the SuperStrat era? Probably. Will some ideas be consigned to the gimmick pile, alongside BetaMax and the Synth-Axe? Definitely.

One thing is for sure, though: in 2023, there are more pickups out there than ever before, and for the guitarist and gear nut that can only be a good thing.

NAMM 2023: Fishman has expanded its signature Fluence electric guitar pickups series with two super-fresh new sets for Polyphia’s Tim Henson and Scott LePage, and for the trailblazing guitarist who wants to get a little nuts with their tone, these p’ups offer lots of options.

Fishman’s multi-voiced Fluence designs always do. And the Polyphia sets do not disappoint on that score. Both players have dual humbucker sets, available now, each tailored to their style and what tones they need from their electric guitar.

For Henson, that extends from the “hot-rodded Classic voice” for the quintessential Henson high-gain tone on the bridge humbucker right over to – wait for it – a “hyper-clean, nylon string substitute” voicing on the neck pickup. And there is so much ground inbetween.

Available with black or white coverings, they really do have the potential to transform your guitar tone. 

“We had to reach certain types of tones within his set without having to change guitar,” says Ken Susi, brand manager, Fishman. “That was probably the most important hurdle we had to overcome. But with Fluence, because we offer up to two voicings, sometimes three –in this case it’s three – we were able to fit everything that Tim needed right into his signature series pickups.”

Based around an Alnico V bar-magnet-and-pole design, Henson’s Fluence pickups can be wired to “set up and forget” or to change voicings by manually toggling. Each pickup as three voices apiece. The neck pickup has a traditional “thick and smooth” humbucking voice. Let’s call it now; this voice is for your boomer bends. Just add Klon.

Voice 2, meanwhile, is that nylon-string surrogate, which might well be a cheaper way of adding that percussive plunk of the nylon-string electro to your tone library. Check it out in the video above, around 8:45. It sounds uncanny. Finally, Voice 3 is described as “Tim’s fluid neck single-coil”, for all your spanky, compressed neo-Stratocaster tones.

On the bridge pickup, you have Voice 1 coming live and direct with that classic lead voicing, Voice 2 is a combination of Henson’s favorite humbucking sounds, while Voice 3 is  bridge-and-neck single-coil combined.

The core design for Scott LePage’s signature set is the same. Again, we have Alnico V magnets, three voicings per pickup. At the neck there is a vintage PAF humbucker sound, “a Fluence-exclusive with unreal highs, vocal midrange, and tight lows”, and a clear vintage-style single-coil voice.

LePage’s bridge pickup also has a PAF voicing, with Voice 2 where you’ll find that hot-rodded humbucker sound for all your modern high-gain shenanigans – the one you kick on when jamming with Steve Vai – and Voice 3 rounds things out with an overwound single-coil sound. LePage’s set is similarly available in black and white, but with gold pole pieces 

Both of these pickup sets can be powered using a 9V battery or an optional rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack (sold separately, priced $109 street). And they are available now, both priced $289 street.

See Fishman for more details.

Owing to his boundary-pushing playing style, Tim Henson is something of an authority when it comes to all things guitar. Therefore, whenever the Polyphia man discusses topics such as tone, guitar solos and guitars themselves, it’s probably wise to listen.

Lucky for us, those topics all came up during Henson’s recent fan Q&A with Wired, during which the progressive virtuoso was tasked with discussing and explaining his own take on the three key aspects to guitar playing.

In response to a fan who was struggling with understanding what makes a good guitar tone – a fairly subjective aspect of guitar music in itself – Henson commented, “It has everything to do with taste and using your ears.”

He elaborated, “I remember when I was 10 years old I could not hear what the bass guitar was doing. I just couldn’t distinguish it between the guitar. Then, just a year later, I was like, ‘I can clearly hear that now; I don’t know what was wrong with me.’

“Now, I’ve been on this earth long enough to understand what a good mix is, and why it’s a good mix. Listening to a lot of music and comparing mixes and comparing guitar tones will help you on your journey to crafting a good guitar tone.”

Prior to offering his take on tone, Henson was asked a similar question relating to guitar solos – specifically, ‘What makes a great guitar solo? What you are playing or how it is played?’

Again, Henson’s answer is pretty conceptual, and – like any guitar player worth their salt – avoids compartmentalizing “good guitar solos” into a neatly defined box.

“For me, how memorable the solo is, and if you can sing the solo,” offers Henson, who references Brian May’s lead effort from Bohemian Rhapsody to illustrate his point. “For example, I think the guitar solo from Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the best guitar solos of all time. If you can sing with it, it’s more memorable than just a bunch of notes scattered.”

With solos and tone ticked off, Henson’s attention was turned to the guitar itself – namely, what makes a six-string “good”. “There’s something that I mentioned earlier, which is the word ‘mojo’,” Henson mused. “I guess that’s the feeling, and how much it inspires you to create, how much it inspires you to play.

“My first guitar ever was a Squier Strat. It was $150, but it had a lot of mojo, it really made me want to pick it up and play it. Other than that, a guitar can be good if it is built really well.

“With shoddy craftsmanship you’ll see things like the frets – if you were to run your hand [along the side of the fretboard] and you’re feeling jagged things and getting cut, it’s not going to be great craftsmanship. If there’s a space between the neck and the body joint, that’s probably not a well-built guitar.”

Having said that, Henson concedes there can be times when badly built guitars can in fact be good guitars, so long as it still has that all-important mojo. “It’s really hard to put your finger on what makes a good guitar. It’s kind of just a subjective thing.”

Elsewhere in the Q&A, Henson puts his tutor cap on to help fans struggling with certain techniques, breaking down concepts such as barre chords, two-hand tapping, pinch harmonics and sweep picking, as well as offering up a whistle stop tutorial of Polyphia’s mind-boggling track, Playing God.

With his educational mind in full-swing, the prog pioneer went on to recommend Black Sabbath’s Iron Man as a good beginner song to focus on when practicing power chords, and though he doesn’t actually play the riff, notes, “Classic song, one of the first songs I ever learned.”

Near the start of the 16-minute video, Henson also gave a special shoutout to John Mayer, labeling his fretboard workout Neon as “a riff that sounds easy, but is actually hard to play”.

Though some people would no doubt think Neon instead belongs in the “riffs that sound hard and are actually hard to play” camp, Henson pressed on, waxing lyrical about the fingerstyle technique and left-hand contortions Mayer showcases in the 1999 hit.

It’s not the first time this year that Tim Henson and Neon have been mentioned in the same breath. Earlier this month, a YouTuber named STRVSS flexed his sharp editing chops by overdubbing a Henson playthrough video with audio from a neo-soul-esque rendition of Neon, fooling fans into thinking the Polyphia maestro was indeed covering the track.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, but now Henson himself has mentioned Neon, there’s renewed hope that a genuine Polyphia-style cover might arrive somewhere down the line.

“In the style of” videos are some of the most intriguing pieces of guitar-related content you can find online. Why? Well, thanks to inquisitive players, we’re able to get an insight into an alternate musical reality – one, for example, where Slipknot wrote Master of Puppets instead of Metallica.

To contribute to this goldmine of guitar goodness, a YouTuber who goes by the tag STRVSS has turned their attention to two of today’s most influential players: John Mayer and Tim Henson.

Specifically, STRVSS has concocted a parallel universe in which Mayer masterminded Polyphia's Neuvo Flamenco track Playing God in his trademark fingerstyle approach, and where Henson wrote Mayer's Neon as a trap-esque, 808-loaded eight-string electric guitar workout.

We’re not quite sure what technological wizardry STRVSS used to create the edits, but the results are quite something. By overdubbing video footage of Mayer and Henson playing guitar with audio from elsewhere, the YouTuber has crafted a sonic timeline in which the two titans went down drastically different routes.

At first glance, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Mayer – who can be seen playing a Martin acoustic guitar in footage from his Where The Light Is live concert from 2008 – was genuinely playing a stripped-back, unplugged rendition of Playing God. 

Even an extended intro in the style of Neon's live rendition is present, which precedes a fully fingerstyle version of track’s main riff – dutifully lifted from a cover previously published by acoustic virtuoso Sungha Jung. Such is STRVSS’s seamless editing, though, the untrained eye could be fooled into thinking Mayer did actually pen and perform the Neuvo Flamenco track over 10 years ago.

Closer inspection, though, reveals some fingering mishaps and right-hand irregularities. Still, a pretty solid effort, and Sungha Jung’s flawless cover certainly helps the cause.

As for Henson’s take on Neon, we’re not quite sure where STRVSS got the audio from – they’re keeping their cards close to his chest in the comments section – but the footage is from Henson’s performance of Reverie, meaning it looks uncannily like the Polyphia virtuoso has transformed Neon into an eight-string fretboard workout.

There are a few extra string slaps in there, and some more accented plucks à la Polyphia, meaning the video does a good job of tricking the viewer into thinking Henson is actually reeling through the track’s main hook. Alas, once again, it’s just STRVSS’s editing chops working their magic.

Now we know what Mayer and Henson playing each other’s music looks like, we can’t help but wonder what such a full-length would sound like. So, if any intrepid reader fancies adding some extra harmonics and two-hand taps to Neon, or giving Playing God a Mayer-style makeover, we’re all ears. Heck, if Mayer and Henson themselves fancy covering each other's music, that would be even better.

It’s fair to say that one of the fiercest player/guitar brand partnerships of the current era belongs to Tim Henson and Ibanez. Together, they’ve designed and released three highly popular signature guitars, including the flagship THBB10 electric guitar and recent TOD10.

Sandwiched between those two is the TOD10N – a nylon-string model that revived a quirky retro Ibanez design and that featured heavily across Polyphia’s newest album, Remember That You Will Die.

As fans, we’re not privy to the behind-the-scenes discussions that go on between Henson and Ibanez, and as such there’s no telling how many guitar designs have been left on the cutting room floor over the past few years.

In a recent studio tour, though, Henson did give guitarists a glimpse of one rather eye-catching signature instrument that never went to production: a monstrous 8-string guitar, designed in a similar style to the THBB10.

While giving viewers a run-down of his well-stocked signature guitar rack, Henson showed off the TOD10, a pair of TOD10Ns, the first-ever THBB10 – labeled the THM10 – before arriving at what he called the THBB8.

Though he confirms the guitar “will never reach production,” he does give viewers a good look at the eight-string model, which flashes the same gold hardware/black colorway combo that can be found on the THBB10. 

Not only that, it also looks to have an identical torrefied roasted maple fretboard and the same abalone inlay design, which leads us to believe it could have been conceived and created around the same time as the original THBB10.

Why it never received a release, or whether it will be revisited in the future, Henson didn’t say, though we can’t help but feel that the THBB8 would make an awe-inspiring addition to Henson’s standard-run signature six-string range.

Moving on to a separate rack, Henson then showed off the 10 additional axes that complete his studio setup, comprising two headless Quest models – including Ichika’s signature ICHI10 – the original SCN500 that inspired the TOD10N and an all-koa guitar that he says might be the most expensive instrument in his collection.

As for his signature guitar stand, it sounds as though Henson might have to invest in a larger rack in the near future, after he recently teased the imminent arrival of yet more signature guitars.

In a separate video, in which Henson showed off his new car, the Polyphia virtuoso confirmed a “couple” of new signatures are on the way, and that they’ll be arriving later this year.

“Can’t wait to see you guys in 2023,” he said. “We’re going to be on two tours, both American, and UK and Europe. 

“If you’re in the market for a guitar, we just put out the TOD10N, the TOD10 and there’s going to be a couple of new ones this year, so stay on the look out.”

Had Henson not so definitively ruled out the possibility of his THBB8 receiving a belated release, we’d probably be quick to speculate it could be one of the instruments on the way. However, he could just be trying to throw us off the scent – we’ll just have to wait and see…

Polyphia’s latest recent album, Remember That You Will Die, was celebrated for two reasons. One, it featured yet more of Tim Henson and Scott LePage’s boundary-pushing progressive electric guitar playing, and two, it called upon a range of high-profile guest musicians.

Key among the crew’s collaborators were Chino Moreno and Steve Vai, with the latter joining forces with Henson and co for one the best guitar tracks of the year, Ego Death. In fact, it gained so much traction, it was voted by you as having the best guitar solo of 2022.

And though we had to wait four years for Remember That You Will Die to arrive after 2018’s New Levels New Devils, Henson has confirmed the wait for Polyphia’s next material will be much, much shorter.

Not only that, the Ibanez signature artist has also namechecked his next cohort of dream collaborators who might be featuring in the band’s forthcoming musical drop.

Speaking to Metal Hammer, Henson teased new music would be arriving this summer – that’s only six months away, people – and hinted at potential guest appearances for Swedish extreme metal quintet Meshuggah and bass guitar extraordinaire Thundercat.

“Hopefully we can get everything cleared legally,” Henson said of the prospective link-ups. “There are going to be a lot of features. The sky’s the limit.”

The prospect of Henson trading licks with Thundercat and throwing down riffs with the help of Meshuggah’s Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström certainly is an enticing one, and is yet further evidence of Polyphia’s seemingly endless sonic versatility.

Likewise, it’s indicative of the band’s desire to continuously evolve beyond their current state and push the boundaries of their respective genre, with Remember That You Will Die exploring rap shred with Lil West, R&B with Brasstracks and more contemporary pop with Sophia Black.

Therefore, if Polyphia can sort out and pull off these Meshuggah and Thundercat team-ups, you can be sure they will make for some unique listening experiences.

2022 was a busy year for Polyphia, and for Henson especially. Not only did they release a new album, Henson also released two new Ibanez signature guitars: the nylon-string TOD10N and Fishman-loaded TOD10. His bandmate LePage was also bestowed a new signature axe: the KRYS10.

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up the latest copy of Metal Hammer, which features a full rundown of the metal acts destined to steal the spotlight in 2023.

Ernie Ball recently tapped Tim Henson for the latest episode of its String Theory series, during which the Polyphia maestro took a deep dive into his influences, songwriting philosophies and overall approach to the electric guitar.

Across its 11-minute duration, the String Theory installment reveals some surprising elements of Henson’s guitar-playing DNA, including his biggest Hollywood-based inspirations, how he sees the guitar simply as a “means to an end”, and how he was already practicing to be the best guitarist on earth at the age of 10.

Here’s everything we learned about Tim Henson in Ernie Ball’s latest String Theory episode.

1. He purposefully practiced to be the best guitarist in the world from the age of 10

With his Neurotica Ibanez art guitar in hand, Henson revealed how a particularly strong-willed mindset from the outset of his guitar-playing journey helped him turn his dreams into an inevitability, and enabled him to pioneer the innovative style he’s known for today.

“[When I turned 10] my dad just brought out a guitar, I had no idea that he even played,” Henson recalled. “My dad would go and play with his band, and occasionally he would take me and let me play with them, and I would want to solo over whatever they were doing.

“In sixth grade my friend group’s parents were asking us what we each wanted to be when we grew up, and I said I wanted to be a rockstar,” he went on. “Of course, everyone rolled their eyes or something stupid. I was just dead-ass serious, though.

“I had this idea that I wanted to be the best guitar player on earth. From like age 10 to 13, I just practiced with the intention of becoming the best guitar player in the world.”

2. Jack Black movies were some of his biggest inspirations 

By an extension of the above point, Henson also revealed some of the biggest driving forces behind his desire to become the best guitarist on the planet: Jack Black movies.

Specifically, Henson cited School of Rock, Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, and even Steve Vai’s cult classic Crossroads as key early influences that got him well on the way to becoming the guitar star he is today.

“I had watched School of Rock and Pick of Destiny and, you know, the Jack Black movies were really influential,” he mused. “Then I watched Crossroads, with Steve of course, and just the idea of selling your soul to the devil and then you were the best… I thought that was so cool.”

3. He joined a worship band so he could get regular playing experience

Before his days as a progressive virtuoso – and before Polyphia’s early death metal era – Henson was involved in a significantly different guitar scene: worship music. Though at the time he didn’t “give a shit about any of that”, the band gave him the opportunity to play regularly.

After forming bands to play Green Day and emo covers, Henson then joined a worship band for a youth group. “That was one of the first times I ever played with a group of my peers. Then I joined a worship group, and I don’t give a shit about any of that, but I just wanted to play. It was an opportunity for me to play every weekend.”

4. The guitar is just a means to an end for him 

Though he set himself an early goal of becoming the best guitarist on earth, it’s interesting that Henson sees the instrument itself predominantly as a vehicle for creation. In fact, had he picked up any other instrument in his youth, the Tim Henson we know today may not have developed.

“Guitar playing for me is more of a means to an end, the end being the creation of music,” he said. “The guitar is a tool to execute my ideas and bring them to life. If I were good at any other instrument, I would be playing that instrument – but I’m only good at guitar, so that’s the one I use.”

5. His biggest piece of advice for aspiring artists? Find your voice

Given he’s well on track to achieve the goal he set his 10-year-old self, Henson is probably one of the best people to give advice when it comes to all things guitar. Speaking to Ernie Ball, he imparted a particularly important piece of wisdom to viewers: find your voice.

“I think the most important thing as a young player is to find your voice, to find your style,” he offered. “The way you do that is you learn your favorite things, you learn your favorite styles and it helps to be into a lot of things, so you can pinpoint contrasting stuff.

“Eventually, you get good at all these different things you like – stylistically, they’re going to make their way into your original playing. Then you might have an original voice.”

Since its release late last year, Tim Henson’s Ibanez TOD10N signature guitar has already become a favorite among some of today’s most progressive players. In just three months, it’s already been picked up by Manuel Gardner Fernandes, Marcin and Ichika Nito, all of whom have demonstrated the tonal capacity of the neat nylon-string.

Recently, Ichika Nito took the TOD10N for a second spin, using it alongside his own headless Ibanez ICHI10 Quest signature model for a breathtaking original arrangement titled The World is Still Beautiful.

After using it for one of the most technical 18 seconds of 2022, Ichika returned for an extended spell on the TOD10N’s fretboard, seemingly merging his own spell-binding penchant for gravity-defying lead runs with a handful of Polyphia-flavored harmonic chimes and percussive strums.

It was the perfect guitar for the job, with the nylon strings and Fishman Sonicore pickup easily accommodating Ichika’s snappy licks and even snappier right-hand action, culminating in an extended motif that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Polyphia record.

To close the track out, Ichika returned to the comfort of his own signature guitar, with which he dialed an equally crystalline tone for a further helping of jangly upper-fret frolics and two-hand tapping embellishments.

The latter half is quintessential Ichika, underpinned by the uncompromising clean sounds of the ICHI10’s R1 single-coils.

Despite the obvious popularity of the TOD10N, Henson recently revealed that Ibanez were initially hesitant to make the signature model, and that it was only the success of Playing God – the track that introduced everyone to the guitar – that eventually convinced them to release it to the public.

“I was in Europe, in 2019, in a pawn shop, and saw an Ibanez nylon electric guitar and I picked it up,” Henson told Revolver last month. “I thought, ‘What the fuck is this thing?’ I texted Ibanez and they told me it was a discontinued, commercially unsuccessful model from 1998.

“I called Ibanez and said, ‘Hey, I want a signature of this,’” he continued. “And they’re like, ‘Well, you know, it really didn’t do well in 1998…’ I was just like, ‘What the fuck!’ So, we made Playing God and I sent it to them, and told them, ‘If you don’t make this guitar, some other brand will – and you’re going to lose out on a lot of fucking money.’ Then they were like, ‘Oh shit, yeah let’s do it.’”

Capitalizing on its popularity, Ibanez recently announced the FRH10N – a cheaper, standard-run version of Henson’s Tree of Death-inlaid beauty that weighs in at $499. 

Aside from streamlined electronics and a less flashy fretboard, the guitar is almost a spec-for-spec recreation of Henson’s own guitar, featuring a solid Sitka spruce top, sapele back and sides, a walnut bridge and an internal fan bracing construction.

Head over to Ibanez to find out more about the FRH10N, and visit Ichika’s YouTube channel to see more of his videos.

This is it, folks, the big one. As end-of-year polls go, this is the one that really matters. Of course, we love the greatest solos, reprising the past 365 days in lead guitar and drilling down to Top 10 that offer clues as to where technique is going and what that means for the musical ideas we want to share with the world. Or riffs, the building blocks of musical life as we know it.

The albums, however, are definitive statements. They contain multitudes. And even in the digital era, streaming scrambling what was so carefully sequenced by the artist’s life, albums still matter.

This year’s greatest guitar albums of 2022, as voted for by you, pull from all kinds of different styles, featuring players who approach the instrument from wholly different perspectives. The list speaks for itself.

Perhaps we should give a shout out to notable omissions from the popular vote, such as Buddy Guy’s The Blues Don't Lie, or Julian Lage’s sophomore album for Blue Note, A View With a Room, and it is worth asking where the maggots were at for Slipknot to miss out on the Top 20? Maybe they voted for Lage and split the vote. Democracy is complicated.

So, too, is making an album. Kudos to anyone nuts enough to make one. Here are your favorites of the year…

20. Wet Leg – Wet Leg

Featuring some of the catchiest hooks of 2022, in songs written with a sense of humor attuned to 33 per cent wry and the rest surrealist, Wet Leg’s debut album is indie rock leavened by helium and the eccentricity of Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers.

The guitar grounds their sound with fuzzy, organic heat – a scratchy tone that resembles the sound of an electric approaching its place in the mix from a jaunty angle. Maybe crafting infectious indie-pop is all about the angles. Their choice of electric guitars – Chambers typically on a vintage Hofner Galaxie, Teasdale on a Surf Green Jazzmaster or Noventa Telecaster – would bear that theory out.

19. Eric Gales – Crown

Even before Eric Gales had entered the studio with the powerhouse blues-rock production duo Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith there was a consensus building that the Memphis, TN guitarist was coronation material.

His profile had suffered offer the years, as he had. With substance abuse issues and jail time in the rearview mirror, there was a clear path to redemption, a low thrum of excitement from people – including Bonamassa – that blues-rock’s most exciting talent was going to be fully realized on record, on the stage, where he belongs.

To watch Gales play is to have one’s mind blown, a player jockeying his S-style Magneto signature guitar as if on a crossfader between SRV and Hendrix, but introducing some classical, some jazz, some whatever because wowsers this man can play. This time he captured that magic on tape for the world to hear.

18. Edgar Winter – Brother Johnny

A loving tribute to the late Texan blues maverick Johnny Winter from his brother Edgar, who selected these choice cuts and corralled an all-star team of six-string talents into the studio to perform them, with a few original cuts for good measure, Brother Johnny is an incredible document of where blues guitar is at in 2022.

It’s poignant, not least for Taylor Hawkins’ performance alongside Doug Rappoport on Johnny Winter’s Guess I’ll Go Away – the Foo Fighters drummer’s first posthumous release after his death in March – but for hearing Winter’s playing refracted through his acolytes, and some of the greatest players on the planet.

You’ve got Joe Bonamassa on Mean Town Blues, Derek Trucks and Billy Gibbons on I’m Yours and I’m Hers, David Grissom and Joe Walsh tearing through Johnny B. Goode, Walsh providing one of many highlights with his playing on Stranger. Keb’ Mo’ and Edgar Winter’s two-hander Lone Star Blues is similarly not to be missed.

17. Muse – Will of the People

To stick a metaphor through the Kaoss Pad, Will of the People is the sort of album that is so big it could be seen from space. Seriously, it’s like pop-culture as an observable phenomenon in natural sciences, with Matt Bellamy’s ginormo-brain tapping into sociopolitical discomfort, gonzo sci-fi, technology, all the stuff that makes Muse Muse, for an album that pushes their sound into new extremes.

Death growls, double-kicks, progressive rock guitar written and performed in the key of Children of Men, falsetto, Will of the People is a an event record, the thrill and the production of the Muse live show – coming soon to a stadium near you – condensed into 37 minutes and 40 seconds.

16. Porcupine Tree – Closure/Continuation

Steven Wilson has had no trouble in filling the days since Porcupine Tree was placed into a state of hibernation, so there was no rush in pulling him away from his solo work, high-profile mixing and production jobs, and extracting drummer Gavin Harrison from King Crimson to simply answer the demand for one of prog’s most captivating projects to reanimate itself once more. This was always going to take time.

When it arrived with the playful/knowing title, it was unmistakably sculpted by Wilson’s sleight of hand, and it had been the product of time. Speaking to Total Guitar, Wilson revealed that he and Harrison had been writing since 2012, when the bear bones of Harridan came together with Wilson on bass guitar, kicking off a slow evolutionary process that would result in one of the most profound releases of the year – a masterwork of light and shade, heaviness recontextualized, and of depths that may yet take another year to fathom.

15. Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators – 4

Myles Kennedy’s first of two albums in this year’s Top 20 found him and the Guns N’ Roses guitarist and bona-fide rock icon Slash ensconced within the magic acoustics of RCA Studio A in Nashville to track a rock album without a safety net. That is, they tracked this thing live, sticking Kennedy in a booth and amps on 10, with the audio production nous of Dave Cobb on hand to steer traffic and let it bleed when it needed to.

The result is something of an anachronism in 2022; it’s a rock album that actually sounds a little dangerous – a rewilding of the art form – that has an energy about it that juices some of Slash’s best playing since publishing the blueprint for sleazy, shambolic, grandiose rock ’n’ roll with 1987’s Appetite for Destruction.

14. Animals As Leaders – Parrhesia

It is a measure of Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes’ future-forward iconoclasm that one of the most radical stories to come out of the studio when tracking Parrhesia was that they used what a younger cohort of GW readers might refer to as a ‘boomer bend machine’ on this one. That’s right, a Gibson Les Paul. Shock, horror. It was as though they had confessed to taking their morning commute on a Penny Farthing.

But this only served to highlight the pragmatism in their approach; leave the dogma to those making less interesting music. This is about finding the tones to make their riffs as dynamic as can be, to make them pop, and Parrhesia pops – metal as written by contortionists, the double-jointed wired to a clock of many rhythms.

13. Jack White – Fear of the Dawn

Fear of the Dawn is a dizzying cornucopia of gourmet fuzz tones, riffs administered from Jack White’s carousel of custom-built Fender guitars, onboard pitch-shifting and bespoke hardware to allow the instrument to transcend its boundaries, and all this is as daring and iconoclastic as Animals as Leaders, and yet White’s aesthetic is vintage – a vintage sound that never existed in the first place. 

White’s internal logic is what holds this imagined state of being in equilibrium, a lock that ensures the garage rock steampunk fever remains unbroken. There’s blues, there’s rock ’n’ roll; you know how it goes. But Fear of the Dawn could have come from no-one else. The opening trifecta of tracks find White engage the riff, but throughout he is pushing it.

“There are places I’ve never gone before, and there’s new techniques I thought I wasn’t capable of doing,” he said, speaking to GW in June. “I think I was finally able to tap into 30 years of experimenting and failing, trying to get a certain tone and not really getting there.”

12. Marcus King – Young Blood

This is a guitar title, ma’am, but please indulge us for a minute as we give it up for Marcus King’s voice. Of course, his gifts on the guitar are abundant but his voice is his true blessing.

Young Blood could be looked at as another redemption record. On Blues Worse Than I Have Ever Had he revisits a dark night of the soul. “At the time, I’d changed medications when I was trying to process the death of family members,” he explained. “I was coasting through life like a zombie. When I’d get off them, I’d feel things that happened six months ago for the first time and crash down.”

On Rescue Me, he mines the emotional range of soul and RnB in search of spiritual uplift. Over the course of 10 tracks, each recorded in the company of Dan Auerbach, we hope he found some. He surely found a sense of renewal for his audience, who can take solace in his lyrics and luxuriate in those guitar tones.

11. Ghost – Impera

The 21st century has too rational a mindset for a band such as Ghost to exist and to flourish. And yet, here we are, the Nameless Ghouls summoned to Tobias Forge’s unholy decree for a blasphemous opera of candied histrionic rock – the closest metal has got to becoming Abba without becoming Abba. 

It is hard to escape the theater on Impera. As under the proscenium, the movements here are exaggerated so everyone can see. The riffs are bigger, the melodies, too. The eighth notes pump like there’s an internal pop-rock combustion engine. At sufficient volumes, the falsetto vocals might explode the crystal glassware on the shelf. A risk you will be willing to take for this operatic Rocky Horror Picture Show to spirit you away to Halloween on any given day of the calendar year.

10. Tedeschi Trucks Band – I Am the Moon

The Tedeschi Trucks Band’s finest hour is also this year’s grandest design, a quadruple album and multi-media project that has a scale and ambition that would seem bold even in the ‘70s. Released in four chapters, each with an accompanying video released to YouTube, I Am the Moon speaks to something fundamental, even elemental, in the human condition and yet does so in all accents of TTB’s polyglot sound.

At its heart you have Susan Tedeschi on vocals and guitar, Derek Trucks on his Gibson SG, southern rock as a launchpad for soul, blues, with RnB and jazz stretching the canvas, Gabe Dixon’s keys giving those guitars more room to run into, Mike Mattison’s vocals heightening the emotional cadence on songs that are at once a journey outwards, through our world, the history of the music that inspired TTB, and also inwards in search of something else. Something more intimate. It is inspired by Nizami’s Layla and Majnun, written from Layla’s POV, but speaks to everyone because things such as this are universal.

9. Ozzy Osbourne – Patient Number 9

Throughout a career spanning over five decades, Ozzy Osbourne has proved himself time after time to be the world’s most effective lightning rod for guitar talent. His age and his health issues ask the question of how much longer he can keep bringing that wonderful yowl to the microphone. His enthusiasm and charisma respond in kind. Patient Number 9 is a classic Ozzy album – big choruses, a little macabre, heavy on the theater, introspective on the sly, and stacked with top guitar players.

There’s producer Andrew Watt, then you have a returning Zakk Wylde, with guest spots from Mike McCready, Tony Iommi, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton because why not, right? Sadly, they couldn’t get Jimmy Page but there’s always next time. You can’t kill rock and roll. You can’t stop Ozzy.

8. Envy of None – Envy of None

What do you do when you have spent decades at the summit of Prog Mountain and have made your descent back to base camp in search of something new? This is where Alex Lifeson found himself after the the dissolution of Rush, precipitated by the death of drummer and chief lyricist Neil Peart. And in Envy of None, Lifeson found the answer, playing a style that was a 90-degree turn, more textures than the explicitly melodic riffs and motifs that stitched together Rush’s widescreen prog canvas, leaning more on synthesized arrangements.

“I feel like I’ve fully explored the whole area of soloing,” Lifeson told Guitar World. “I think I have a particular style and character to my solos, [and] there’s lots of variation in my soloing, but I think at this point in my life it’s more about servicing the song. Not being too distracting, or shining a light on any particular thing. It’s just getting into the groove, tapping your foot and feeling connected with the song itself.”

And, ultimately, feeling connected to your art again. Welcome back, sir.

7. Joe Satriani – The Elephants of Mars

Because Joe Satriani has been in the six-string mind expansion game for some time now, there is a danger that we take him for granted, as though it is normal for anyone born of flesh and blood to be that right-on with their intonation, to have such command of the whammy bar, to be able to call upon such a cosmic imagination each year when it comes time to write an album.

Satch himself says he wanted this to be a definitive statement of where he was at as a musician. Where its predecessor, Shapeshifting, offered a whirlwind tour of Satriani’s musical turn-ons, from the iridescent spectaculars of Eddie Van Halen to Ali Farka Touré and Dick Dale, The Elephants of Mars is full-on immersion in Satriani’s style. As such, it is both grand and audacious, small and intimate. 

Some of the sounds you’ll hear on this album are genuine WTF, stop-and-rewind moments, rationed sensibly because Satriani would very much like you to stick with the program and join him on this musical journey. His tone is ridiculous here, all the more remarkable that it largely came from a SansAmp plugin, the usual complement of Marshall guitar amps sitting this one out.

6. Andy Timmons – Electric Truth

Hitting play on GW columnist Andy Timmons’ Electric Truth is to be confronted with the loose-steppin’ funk groove of E.W.F. As irresistible as a perfectly seasoned cashew, this track’s casually manipulative rhythm greases up the hips like it was a cod liver oil injection, and places you at real risk of adopting what could only be described as an exaggerated strut. The perambulatory quality of E.W.F. is testament to Timmons’ command of his brief, and just how deep he can take you with the guitar.

It’s not all sashaying. Timmons has a chameleon sensibility with his instrument, moseying on over into blues-rock, with Mr Josh Smith overseeing production and joining in the fun on the blues guitar shoot out of Johnnie T, and leaning in on the instrumental rock virtuoso vibe on Shuggie without every being in danger of over-playing.

5. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Return of the Dream Canteen

You wait 16 years for a Red Hot Chili Peppers album with John Frusciante and then two come along at once. Well, not at once, but Return of the Dream Canteen was recorded in the same sessions as Unlimited Love, which when you lay them both out nose-to-tail makes you realize just how different these albums are, and just how crazy intense that time spent with Rick Rubin was to get so much music out of it.

Sure, Rubin presides over things with that irenic disposition of his, sitting stock still, filtering the air like a giant clam waiting for the music to nourish him – the Chilis? Well, John Frusciante and Flea will have face-off jam challenges, taking the quasi-gladiatorial approach to songwriting. It works.

Return of the Dream Canteen could have sounded like off-cuts, or be considered as such because the audience can smell that sort of thing, but the cooking is on point, the funk and the rock are in balance, and as guitar highlights go, Frusciante’s tribute to EVH on Eddie is right up there.

4. Megadeth – The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead!

The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead! has everything you could want from a Megadeth record. The writing and recording of the album is a triumph in and of itself, with frontman and guitarist Dave Mustaine receiving chemotherapy and radiotherapy to treat tongue cancer while trying to make the record. There was also the departure of longstanding bassist David Ellefson to contend with. Nevertheless, Mustaine trucked on, and sublimated that mortal and administrative panic into an album of precision targeted aggression.

You’ll find Megadeth at their fastest here. Night Stalkers, featuring Ice-T, clocks in at 190BPM, a mechano-thrasher inspired by a top-secret helicopter division of the military. The title track coincidentally references the plague and thus is right on message for the time it was recorded in. There are tracks about irradiated canines, about addiction, about reality TV, and throughout, the partnership of Mustaine and Kiko Loureiro has never sounded better, approaching Mustaine/Friedman levels of technical ecstasy and rubber-stamping Megadeth’s cred as a state-of-the-art metal band.

3. Steve Vai – Inviolate

To have both Joe Satriani and his former student and now great friend Steve Vai release albums that perfectly articulate their essence as musicians in the same year is a double blessing. Just as Satch’s Elephants of Mars could not be any more Satch, Inviolate is 100 percent Vai, which is to say guitar playing informed by an imagination that daren’t recognize any physical limitations at all.

Injured? Had some shoulder surgery? Oh, okay, just write a song one-handed – you can do that, Steve. Oh, you did, Knappsack, a song that could be the end-of-level boss in a legato videogame. Then there are the new techniques, such as joint-shifting, which gives the single-coil spank of Candle Power an almost mechanised quality, like a quantum computer reimagining of Brent Mason. Steve Vai? There’s algorithms in those fingers!

And, of course, there is the Hydra, the triple-necked custom Ibanez electric guitar that sat on a stand and hissed at Vai until he summoned the courage to learn to play it, and then wrote and recorded Teeth of the Hydra, a steampunk instrumental that positions Vai as guitar’s frontiersman-in-chief.

2. Alter Bridge – Pawns & Kings

Myles Kennedy and Mark Tremonti have already got the best riff of 2022 trophy gathering dust on the mantelpiece, and now they have a podium finish for an album that reaffirms Alter Bridge as platinum card-carrying members of rock and metal’s elite. They might have stripped things back, a cautionary production approach to guard against engineering the life out of the material, but the record still sounds huge.

The riffs thrum with energy. The ideas coming out of the Kennedy/Tremonti Vulcan mind-meld are written in thick felt marker, with all the subtlety, the detail, and the light and shade drawn in afterwards. There’s a directness to Pawns & Kings. Kennedy’s arrangements on This Is War serve to ameliorate an internal struggle against self-doubt. His ideas for the title track set the table for what was to follow.

1. Polyphia – Remember That You Will Die

Instrumental rock guitar has a long and storied history, but to connect the dots between Hank Marvin and the Shadows and what Polyphia’s Tim Henson and Scott LePage are doing on the existentially titled Remember That You Will Die will require the use of a wormhole. This is guitar music performed and recorded at the edge of its practitioners’ abilities, augmented by technology, and patched together in the edit for maximum audacity straight through your ear canal.

There’s even a song titled The Audacity. They’re not even hiding it anymore. But wait, they never were, and that’s what makes Polyphia’s knowing relationship with virtuosity as a concept so much fun. There’s humor in this. There’s awe. There’s a solo from Steve Vai. There is the use of nylon-string acoustic-electric guitars to extend the aesthetic outer limits of the record with their plink-plonk attack and precision. There are collaborations to extend those parameters further. 

But to bring it back to the Shadows and the Ventures, what would it sound like if they were presented with a Quad Cortex, a stacked Rolodex, and the capability to track at their own studio? We might need Doug Castro to engineer us a fully operational wormhole to find out. And if does build it, we’re sending Henson and LePage on through – like a Bill and Ted who scored 180-plus on their IQ test – to see what comes back. Maybe we just heard it.

What can the greatest guitar solos of the year tell us about the business of playing the guitar? Well, in one sense, this annual democratic endeavor reveals a lot about where lead guitar is going technically. 

Once upon a time, some people were saying the guitar solo is dead, and yet here we are in 2022, in an era when individual virtuosity has never been more spectacular – and not just on social media, which has been an accelerant for neo-shred styles. Players are doing what they have always done, standing upon the shoulders of giants, in search of new techniques, new sounds, but also, more to the point, in search of themselves.

After all, that’s all technique is: a means to an end, a mode of expression. Once we look past the technique, we’ll find that the solos here all serve different purposes. They’re all telling different stories. That is what Chris Buck is doing with Cardinal Black’s Warm Love – we describe it as a journey, and it is, but it’s a narrative. It’s the same for Erja Lyytinen, whose meticulous intonation evokes the blues-rock greats, and for Slash, whose lyrical style is evergreen.

Take Eddie, from Red Hot Chili Peppers’ returning guitarist John Frusciante, a player of great gifts, not least his discipline, knowing when to temper his brilliance and when not to. Eddie, written in tribute to Eddie Van Halen, somehow does both, allowing him a bona-fide guitar hero moment that nonetheless has the good grace to not pull focus away from what Flea is doing on bass – a bassline like he is talking to Frusciante as he scales a rock face, telling him where to place his feet.

Others are the story, like how Steve Vai and Ibanez teamed up for one of electric guitar’s most bonkers, most intriguing creations, and the sound that he could get out of it. Or like when Steve Vai answered an email from two guys from Austin, TX.

And others act as all lead playing does – whether it’s clarinet, oboe, violin or a Les Paul – it acts as a power-up, changing the energy of the song, using all of the above, the sense of narrative, an exploration of technique and what’s possible, for a musical set piece that gets people out of their seats. And that’s why people play guitar.

• The 10 best guitar riffs of 2022

10. Erja Lyytinen – Bad Seed

The first single taken from the Finnish blues-rock phenomenon’s latest studio album, Waiting For The Daylight, features a solo that will stop you in your tracks should you be laboring under the impression that Lyytinen’s style is all about the slide, and strictly blues as manifested by all those 5s, 7s, and 8s on the tablature notation. 

This is the aggressive expansion of blues-rock’s melodic perimeter fence, as though Lyytinen is following in Gary Moore’s footsteps, chasing down big moonlit minor key melodies with her lead playing, digging into her two years getting musically booksmart at the conservatory, intonation on point, for a solo that effectively tells the story of the song without words.

9. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Eddie

RHCP’s big, massive and prolific 2022 was lit up with guitar highlights from returning guitarist John Frusciante. It wasn’t so much 365 days spent orbiting the sun as an outpouring – two albums, stadium tours, and a track that saluted the late Eddie Van Halen.

Taken from the Los Angeles superstars' second album of the year, Return of the Dream Canteen (where is this canteen, does it take reservations?), Eddie is not the sound of Frusciante with a modded Strat, a Marshall stack and a Variac in search of Eruption II, but in a sense it is the sound of Frusciante placing himself in that zone.

It opens with him at his most yowling, quasi-Hendrix fuzz, with the solo all the more impactful for sharing the mix with Flea’s peripatetic and propulsive eighth-note bassline. But as Eddie works towards a conclusion you ask yourself, ‘Is he going to go full-shred? He’s not.’ He did, kind of.

8. Slash – Fill My World (feat. Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators)

There is a case to be made that says 4 is the most Guns N’ Roses album Slash and Myles Kennedy have recorded together with their band of Conspirators. It has a sleazy grit to it, like an oyster recovered from the gutter on Sunset, a sense of animalism that is hard to put into a rock ’n’ roll record in the 21st century because contemporary audiences have long been deflowered; they’re inured to this kind of thing.

That the band were allowed to track it live – a long-held aspiration of Slash’s – was critical. There’s even something a little Sweet Child O’ Mine about the Fill My World, right there in that opening riff. But then Slash’s phrasing is always going to betray his latent appetite for destruction, right there in the controlled chaos, in the trebly clang of his Les Paul into Marshall head. Here, as ever, he proves that there’s no-one better at balancing noble melodic intent with rock’s devil-may-care fatalism.

7. Ghost – Griftwood

Sadly not a bold theater-metal cover of Scottish indie wets Travis’s Driftwood, this is kind of something else, subversive with its bash-the-bishop anti-religious pomp, and it plays out a little like Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love as reimagined for the Eurovision market.

It’s like they’ve turned black metal marshmallow pink. From the gussied up production to its redoubtable structure and pop dynamics, Griftwood is really is a masterclass in formal discipline, and of course a composition like this demands a big solo and a 2,000-watt spotlight to shine on it.

The anonymity of the Nameless Ghouls must make for an HR nightmare and streaming platforms must spend much of your subscription fees on designing the algorithm to administer royalties (no laughing at the back) to these cats, but it also makes adjudicating this style all that more difficult. Could it be Phil Collen in black robes and face mask? Is Vitto Bratta leading a double life? We’ll never know, but the solo rips all the same. La Suède, Douze points!

6. Nita Strauss – The Wolf You Feed (feat. Alissa White-Gluz)

Oh, so this is why they call her Hurricane Nita… Wowzers. With Nita Strauss’s 2022 was dominated by the headlines surrounding her departure from Alice Cooper’s touring band and joining up with pop superstar Demi Lovato, there was a risk her profile as a solo artist would fly under the radar.

But then Strauss had the good sense to hedge against this, drafting Alissa White-Gluz from Arch Enemy for some serious vocals – a collaboration she had been wanting to do forever – and firing out a work of anthemic up-tempo metal that could not be complete until she’d turned the strings on her Ibanez JIVAX2 signature guitar molten.

The Wolf You Feed was the second of two singles that will feature on her upcoming solo album, with the followup to 2018’s Controlled Chaos expected some time in early 2023. It is sure to be one of the guitar spectaculars of the year.

5. Alter Bridge – Pawns & Kings

Having ran away with the Palme d’Or for best riff of 2022, with Silver Tongue winning by a landscape, Myles Kennedy and Mark Tremonti return to chart highly once more for his unique abilities to gently melt the face. There’s something about the way those players just tease the notes off the fingerboard, with Pawns & Kings sounding like the divination of some sacred metal they have discovered while backpacking across the Sinai Peninsula.

The solo here is anticipated by an off-kilter legato shred-a-doodle that is more hyper-rhythm than lead, but when it arrives – complete with that high-end electric guitar tone courtesy of Paul Reed Smith’s R&D department – it is a stop-and-rewind moment.

It's also an invitation for all the young Tremontis to get their game faces on, retreat to the practice space, to try all the guitar picks at their disposal – maybe even all at once – and work on phrasing and those super-fluid transitions that Tremonti and Kennedy so insouciantly perform like a master maître d’ preparing his 10,000th Crêpes Suzette. Indeed, this is what 10,000 hours sounds like.

4. Cardinal Black – Warm Love

Chris Buck revs up his Goldtop Revstar to give Warm Love the warmth and the love that a soulful blues-rock track a decade in the making deserves. And it requires a fingerstyle approach to tease out all the dynamics. We’re assuming, or rather calling the live session version as definitive, because that’s where Buck really stretches out and perches his guitar where Tom Hollister’s vocals were just a minute before.

Using a wah pedal as an occasional filter, no doubt with some space added from a Dawner Prince Boonar, and then just seizing the improvisational initiative to take the solo from Point A through the scenic route to arrive at Point B in one piece. 

Though with a solo such as this, you don’t want the tension of thinking it’s all going to come crashing down; the tension here is how high he might take it. Well, 2022 was quite the year for Cardinal Black: Buck took this all the way to the Royal Albert Hall.

3. Steve Vai – Teeth of the Hydra

Steve Vai’s playing has outgrown the guitar. We have long suspected it. The clues were there: the accumulation of the double-necked electrics, the playing one-handed while recovering from surgery, all to keep things interesting and find new avenues for musical exploration. And now this: the best, the Ibanez Hydra, the triple-necked steam-punk custom build that inspired this ripping, not-of-this-Earth instrumental.

Anyone who has put in the hours working on their Travis picking will particularly appreciate Vai’s separation of various parts of his brain, as though head, shoulders, knees and toes can all act independently of each other, answering to their own metronome.

That Teeth of the Hydra is technically audacious goes without saying – it is a man playing a guitar with three necks – but it somehow encapsulates what an instrument like this should sound like, an instrument so cumbersome it needs to be on a stand, one that has its own theme song. We look forward to hearing a sequel.

2. Sophie Lloyd – Do or Die

Sophie Lloyd made her name by adapting tracks from across the length and breadth of the pop-culture firmament for shred guitar, and it turns out this gambit endows her with all the chops necessary to, y’know, just go out and tear it up as Machine Gun Kelly’s stunt guitarist, or to take on the big projects such as corralling her favorite singers into the studio – a power move inspired by Slash, who did something similar with his solo work – for an all-star album. 

Do Or Die is taken from her forthcoming solo album, Imposter Syndrome, which will be released in 2023, and features Nathan James on vocals. James, frontman of Inglorious, will thank you for not fast-forwarding the YouTube video to watch Lloyd set her Kiesel ablaze, but understands if you did.

1. Polyphia – Ego Death (feat. Steve Vai)

It had to be Ego Death. Just doing the arithmetic on the personnel involved would have led most to the conclusion that no other solo could compete. Here we have Steve Vai lighting up his Ibanez PIA with Scott LePage and Tim Henson holding down the rhythm.

With 8.8 million views on the Polyphia YouTube page, a second Top 10 finish for Steve Vai, and one of the most audacious moments on an album that in years to come might well become a byword for audacity, Ego Death is an early contender for the ne plus ultra of 21st-century guitar instrumentals. 

It is the sound of the master who never let himself lose his sense of radicalism stretching out to offer Tim Henson and Scott LePage a solo that is quintessentially Vai: virtuosic but playful, tricksy but melodic, and a perfect fit for the Polyphia aesthetic of pristine genius.

As Vai explained when he sat down with Henson, LePage and Guitar World, his playing on Ego Death was his gift for Polyphia to do with what they say fit. That meant cutting it up, as they often do, splicing instrumentation together, and taking a non-linear approach to writing and composition much in the way a hip-hop producer might.

“I wanted them to do it. It didn’t really matter – it’s not sacred,” Vai said. “It was chopped in a way that met their creativity demands, and I wouldn’t want them to do anything else. When I first heard it, though, it was so different. I thought, ‘Maybe they didn’t like what I did!’”

Oh, they did. Just listen to it. It’s perfect.

Ibanez has teamed up once again with Polyphia guitar wizards Tim Henson and Scott LePage to create two all-new signature guitars: the TOD10 and KRYS10.

It wasn’t that long ago that Henson and the Japanese guitar giant were releasing the TOD10N – a quirky nylon-string guitar first spotted and heard in the music video of Polyphia’s comeback single, Playing God.

Now, Henson and Ibanez – along with LePage – have set their sights firmly on the electric guitar department, releasing a pair of six-strings that have also seen extensive action from both players in recent times.

Some of the specs come as no surprise. As per a previous announcement from Fishman, Henson and LePage are now new endorsees of the pickup specialist, meaning each axe comes loaded with a set of specifically designed signature active humbuckers.

Taking things one model at a time, Henson’s silver-finished double-cutaway has been around for quite some time now. Back in February this year, the elusive model featured in Henson’s collaborative single with Jason Richardson, Upside Down, and stole the show when the Polyphia maestro teamed up with Plini and Cory Wong for a single titled Sunset.

More recently, though, it featured on Remember That You Will Die, and was used during a live cameo with Steve Vai.

In terms of build, the guitar boasts an American basswood body, an AZ Oval C roasted maple neck and an ebony fretboard, which is treated to 24 jumbo stainless steel frets and a Tree of Death inlay.

Other appointments include a Gotoh T1502 tremolo bridge, Graph Tech nut, 12” radius and subtly sculpted neck heel. As for electronics, two Fishman Fluence Modern Tim Henson signature humbuckers are wired to master volume and tone pots, and a five-way switch. 

The TOD10 also offers a push/pull voice switching tone pot, which delivers more pickup combination possibilities.

LePage’s signature – his first since his flagship SLM10 – is equally stylish, and has also already seen extensive action with Polyphia.

At its core, the KRYS10 employs an ash body, AZ Oval C roasted maple neck and ebony fretboard, which also has 24 jumbo stainless steel frets but opts for offset white block inlays with a KRYS motif on the 12th fret.

The hardware is identical: a Gotoh T1502 – finished in gold here – lines up alongside a Graph Tech nut and 12” radius, with the same control system arriving wired to LePage’s own Fishman Fluence Custom Series active humbuckers.

In terms of price, both Henson's TOD10 and LePage's KRYS10 can be preordered now for $1,499.

For more information, head over to Ibanez.

Not too long ago, Ibanez and Tim Henson teamed up to release the Polyphia virtuoso’s long-awaited nylon-string signature guitar – the TOD10N – which made its debut earlier this year in the prog quartet’s Nuevo Flamenco-inspired single, Playing God.

Since then, we’ve seen our fair share of the model in action, with Henson wielding his newest piece for unplugged playthroughs of Polyphia tracks such as ABC, Neurotica and Playing God.

We’ve also seen the TOD10N in the hands of Henson’s fellow Ibanez signature artist, Marcin Patrzalek, who put the sleek six-string through its paces with a jaw-dropping Latin-inspired fingerstyle performance.

Now, another Ibanez signature artist has got in on the action, with YouTube’s foremost short-sketch virtuoso Ichika Nito taking the TOD10N – or, as he calls it, “the coolest guitar” – for a test drive.

Ichika never needs too long to dazzle viewers with his fretboard fury, but he might just have hit a new record – in just 18 seconds, Ibanez’s first-ever Japanese signature artist recites his entire playbook of extended techniques, from his lightning-quick right hand fingerstyle workout to his incomprehensible flood of two-hand tapping sequences.

We’re struggling to think of a guitarist who could attract more than 116 thousand views for 18 seconds’ worth of playing in just 24 hours, but that’s just a testament to the creativity and ingenuity that guitar fans have come to expect from Ichika.

As for the TOD10N, it continues to prove itself as one of the cleanest-sounding guitars of 2022. Helping it achieve such a status is its solid Sitka spruce top, sapele back and sides, and walnut fretboard-topped C-shap nyatoh neck.

It also comes equipped with a side sound port that aims to “preserve the clean, modern appearance of the guitar, while also providing clear and accurate acoustic tone”, as well as a classical guitar-inspired fan internal bracing.

Other appointments include a Fishman Sonicore pickup, which takes its place alongside an Ibanez AEQ210TF preamp.

It's not the first time Ichika and Henson have crossed paths. Back in 2018, Polyphia tapped the Japanese virtuoso for Death Note, a track that featured on the band's third studio album, New Levels New Devils, while Henson and Nito have previously traded licks in an insane video jam.

The cohort of Ibanez signature artists have become increasingly involved with each other’s musical exploits in recent weeks. Not only have Marcin and Ichika tested Tim Henson’s signature guitar, the pair also recently teamed up with one another to release a quick-fire collaborative single titled Fall.

As for Henson himself, it looks as though his TOD10N will be closely followed by a new Fishman Fluence-loaded Ibanez signature electric guitar next year, after it was recently announced he and his bandmate Scott LePage had partnered with the pickup heavyweights.

To find out more about the TOD10N, head over to Ibanez.

Perplexed by the world’s most exciting guitar band’s bewildering discography? Fear not: here’s a primer that unpacks the evolution of Tim Henson and Scott LePage’s writing over two brain-melting EPs and five albums that push the electric guitar into places we have never heard it before.

This, actually, is just as eye-opening for the acolyte who has followed the Texan trailblazers since they popped their cherry with Inspire – an EP that still sounds fresh today as it did in 2013. So much for juvenilia. 

But then, once the last strains of Remember That You Will Die fade out, all listeners might just be left on the floor. Just did they do that? (The Audacity indeed, right?) 

Well, you can read about how they made Remember That You Will Die, and get the skinny on their awesome collaboration with guitar hero Steve Vai on Ego Death, but below, we tell the Polyphia story so far, album by album.

Inspire EP (2013)

Polyphia had only been around for three years when a playthrough video for Impassion started racking up some serious views as viewers watched and shared footage of a 19-year-old Ibanez-toting Tim Henson and 20-year-old Jackson-armed Scott LePage using a smorgasbord of techniques to dazzle and stun. 

Naturally, it drew great attention to the self-released debut EP’s five tracks, which – as promising as they were – would end up being just a mere taste of the guitar acrobatics to come…

Muse (2014)

After making quite an impactful first impression, the group were then able to tap players like Aaron Marshall, Jason Richardson and Nick Johnston for the genre-splicing tour-de-force of inventive guitar that became their debut full-length. 

Songs like 87 and James Franco have remained firm fan favorites in the years since, though it’s third track and Nick Johnston collaboration Champagne that’s appeared on the setlist more times than anything else they’ve written – and with good reason.

Renaissance (2016)

Album number two saw the Texans scale back on the metallic tones and riffs to create more sonic room for other influences, cross-pollinating different elements of jazz fusion, modern pop and rap into their orchestra of unorthodox. 

Tracks like Culture Shock and Ivory offer some of the heavyweight grooves we’d grown to expect, while deeper cuts like Nightmare and Amour feel thrillingly dynamic, unfolding in the most mysterious of ways.

The Most Hated EP (2017)

Taking their explosive math-rock to new melodic heights on their second EP, with ideas that often felt every bit as lyrical as the human voice, it’s easy to see why tracks like Goose, Icronic and 40oz are among the band’s most popular to date – the latter involving some devilishly wide-stretch sweeps on the clean channel. 

Anybody who’s tried getting them up to speed will probably tell you they’re not for the faint-hearted and among the most challenging from the guitar duo to date.

New Levels New Devils (2018)

For their third album, Henson and LePage went even deeper down the rabbit hole of EDM, trap and electronica – enlisting producers like Judge and Y2K to enhance their less guitar-centric influences in the most extraordinary ways. 

They teamed up with Richardson again for Nasty, as well as enlisting the talents of Ichika Nito, Mateus Asato and Yvette Young elsewhere with some truly remarkable results. 

G.O.A.T. now stands as their most-played track on Spotify– not to mention one of the greatest riffs of the 2010s – demonstrating just why they’ve become guitar heroes for a new generation in three-and-a-half unforgettable minutes.

Remember That You Will Die (2022)

The first bite from this year’s fourth full-length arrived just before summer in the form of Playing God, with Henson and LePage wielding Ibanez nylon-string guitars to fuse trap rhythms with finger-twisting flamenco parts, employing open strings and natural harmonics to cover vast amounts of sonic ground as they have so often done in the past. 

Other tracks like second single Neurotica show the pair experimenting even further with complex rhythm and curious melody, reinventing the fretboard one riff at a time and boldly continuing their evolution as modern-day masters.

• Remember That You Will Die is out now via Rise/BMG.

Polyphia’s music is some of the most technically astounding in the game right now, so it’s hardly any wonder guitarists far and wide are throwing their hat in the ring with cover videos.

But now Tim Henson, Scott LePage, Clay Gober and Clay Aeschliman have been watching fan covers of tracks from their mind-bending new album, Remember That You Will Die, intent on choosing a winner to receive Tim Henson’s newly launched nylon-string Ibanez signature model, the TOD10N.

In a new video posted to the band’s YouTube page, the quartet sit in the control room of their studio, passing judgement on a selection of fan-submitted videos. Thankfully, negative reviews are kept to a minimum, as most of the performances are absolutely out of this world, and the ones that aren’t are just downright hilarious.

First up, the guys check out a performance of Neurotica, in which electric guitar player Ammar Ghazi serves up the track’s uber-melodic octave melodies via two separate playthroughs synced up side by side, before launching into Henson's majestic clean lead lines.

Next up, a fingerstyle maestro by the name of Paolo Gans plays an astonishingly well-executed acoustic guitar cover of RTYWD’s second track, the ever-elusive Playing God. 

As if the track wasn’t difficult enough to play, Gans incorporates Aeschliman’s drum patterns throughout, while tackling Henson’s harmonic-laden lead runs. “Man, I’m going to have to cover his cover!” Henson exclaims.

The band check out a selection of bass covers, too, including a stellar take on ABC (feat. Sophia Black), in which Charlie Renouf serves up a hybrid bass picking masterclass.

Some of the sillier videos include a full acapella rendition of Playing God by Danny Yau, and a take on the same track by Maxime Bornebusch, who recreates it on video game My Singing Monsters.

The competition to win Henson’s TOD10N is fierce, to say the least, but in the end, there was only going to be one winner. And this time, it was Paolo Gans, with his enviable fingerstyle acoustic performance of Playing God.

“[It’s an] absolutely fantastic and immaculate cover,” LePage says. [Gans] really killed it. I don't even think there was a wrong note in the whole thing, and he did the drum solo!”

“I cannot wait to see what he does with this TOD10N,” adds Henson. “That being said, all of your covers were fucking incredible.”

Viral acoustic guitar virtuoso Marcin has taken Tim Henson’s acoustic-electric signature nylon-string, the TOD10N, for a test drive, with predictably jaw-dropping results.

In a new video posted to Instagram, the guitarist puts the Polyphia man’s well-appointed six-string through its paces, with a Latin-inspired fingerstyle composition crafted with lightning-fast legato runs and frenetic chord strums. Check it out below.

Tim Henson’s signature Ibanez TOD10N arrived last month. Based on an old Ibanez design, the solidbody SC500N, the TOD10N is “very much its own creation”, with a hollow body, Sitka spruce top and sapele back and sides, and a walnut fretboard with a Tree of Death pearloid inlay spanning the length of the neck.

In many ways, it’s not all that surprising that the guitar has found its way into Marcin’s hands; while Marcin is primarily an acoustic guitarist and Henson an electric player, both he and Henson share a similarly contemporary approach to fingerstyle playing.

Could Marcin’s new clip be indicative of a future musical collaboration between the pair? We certainly hope so. 

All it would take is Tim Henson playing Marcin’s first-ever signature model, the Ibanez MRC10, and the deal would likely be sealed. Henson has voiced his approval in the comments section of Marcin's video, writing, “Incredible,” so we're already halfway there.

In an interview with Guitar World last year, Marcin detailed his hopes for future percussive acoustic guitar playing.

“My goal is to show the world – not only musicians and guitarists – that percussive acoustic should be the next big thing,” the Polish acoustic maestro said.

“It deserves attention from the mainstream and the average Joe, because it’s something many still haven’t seen or heard. That’s why my own songs, like Snow Monkey, are more mainstream-oriented, with hip-hop, Latin and reggaeton influences. It’s a marriage between experimental playing and very much mainstream and accessible things.”

Earlier this year, Marcin teamed up with fellow virtuoso Ichika for a no-holds-barred acoustic vs electric guitar dual, in which both guitarists tapped into their entire six-string arsenals in an attempt to be crowned the victor. Spoiler: they were both as electrifying as each other, so no winner could possibly be declared.

Progressive electric guitar virtuosos Tim Henson and Scott LePage have signed on to be part of Fishman’s artist roster, the pickup specialist has confirmed.

According to Fishman, the two Polyphia shredders will be using Fluence pickups in their respective axes – specifically, LePage has taken a fancy to the classic Fishman Fluence humbuckers, while Henson has recently hopped to Fishman Fluence Multi-Voice pickups.

No further details were given, except for the fact that both guitarists will be receiving Fishman Fluence-equipped Ibanez signature guitars some time next year. It’s the first concrete piece of information we’ve received regarding the specs of Henson’s elusive upcoming electric signature model, which recently made it its way onto Polyphia’s latest record, Remember That You Will Die.

Speaking to Guitar World, Henson recently listed the guitars that made it onto the album – revealing he used “a shit ton of guitars” in the studio – before hinting at an upcoming new model.

“We did a bunch of out-of-state sessions, and we brought a shit ton of guitars with us,” Henson explained. “I left, like, six guitars in Detroit; they’ve been there for two years. I used an Ibanez SC500N and the nylon guitars. I played my signatures – the THBB8 and the THBB10. There was an AZ seven-string and an AZ prototype.”

The guitarist also briefly referenced a “new signature prototype”, but remained tight-lipped about it, saying, “I can’t talk about that right now.”

Regardless of Henson’s cryptic comments, we now know for sure at least one spec the guitar will feature: Fishman pickups. Specifically, if the company’s latest statement is correct, then the guitar will feature the Multi-Voice humbuckers.

When the guitar does eventually arrive, it will be a radical departure from Henson’s flagship HSS-configured Ibanez THBB10, which favored a set of DiMarzio Notorious pickups.

Likewise, LePage’s own signature model will come loaded with Fishman Fluence humbuckers, which will be utilized in favor of the DiMarzio True Velvet/IGNO combo found on his original HSS-configured SLM10.

It will be Henson’s second signature guitar in as many years, after the prog virtuoso recently teamed up with Ibanez to produce the TOD10N – a nylon-string beast that made its debut on Polyphia’s Nuevo Flamenco-inspired single, Playing God.