“One of the most impressive designs we’ve encountered in quite a while”: Valiant Mercury Distressed review

What is it?

We cannot begin this review without applauding the sheer tenacity of a family business that started just as Covid-19 ran rampant across the globe, only to be hit two years later by the horrors of war. That the company then managed to turn out individual designs such as our offset S-style Mercury is, quite frankly, astonishing.

Formed by older brother and head luthier Vadym Gavrylenko and sibling Dima in 2020, the company’s small team operates from its purpose-built facility in Bila Tserkva, in the Kyiv region of Ukraine.

The brothers used the pandemic’s periods of enforced lockdown to create an exclusive range of guitars and basses. These tip their hats respectfully to the past while retaining a strong design ethic that you won’t see anywhere else.

Vadym’s training as an aerospace engineer brings to the table materials like duralumin, a strong and lightweight aluminium alloy that’s used for the Mercury’s two metal control plates, knurled knobs and dressed away neckplate.

The material is polished rather than plated, so should age naturally with the guitar. Aerospace is also where the company’s many cosmic references have their origin – other models include Jupiter and Titan. But down to the nuts and bolts.

Using European alder for the body and a hard rock maple neck (reinforced with two rods of another space age material, titanium), the 304mm (12-inch) radius neck housing 22 nickel silver frets is glued on, not integral. The neck seems shallower than its stated ‘C profile’ might imply but measures a not outrageously slender 20.5mm at the 1st and 22mm at the 12th fret.

On the maple ’board you’ll notice those attractive ‘Trinity’ inlays beginning at the 1st fret, and the easy truss rod adjustment nut that sits between the topmost two wires. You will have seen a similar approach on Music Man and Blade instruments, and it’s such a good move if you’re not bent on slavishly observing tradition. You may also spot a somewhat unusual fingerboard nut.

It’s micro-adjustable: every string sits in its own separate bell bronze screw head, and each ‘mini nut’ has two slots arranged in a cross pattern. Lift the string and a quarter turn of the screw either way raises or lowers the height minutely. Is it a sledgehammer to crack a walnut? Of course – but we love it!

Those control plates, too. While this idea first appeared on other more famous offsets, these are no direct lift. Instead, the duralumin is thicker and more chamfered, and reminds us of the tailfins of old American cars like the ’50s Ford Fairlane and Fleetwood Cadillac (or again, perhaps something more aeronautical). Whatever their inspiration, the whole assembly is really rather cool.

Housed within a 3mm mint green acrylic pickguard sits a trio of pickups (well, four actually, but we’ll get to that) in HSS format. This is Valiant’s M80 set and comprises neck and middle single coils with oversized magnets, said to offer smoother tone and better balance across the strings, plus the bridge pickup – which looks like a standard-footprint open-topped humbucker but is, in fact, a pair of singles placed side by side.

Now, a word about the finish. Obviously without the decades-old heritage of certain other guitar companies, Valiant’s distressed Mercury is not pretending to have got this way through years of wear.

Instead, it’s as though Vadym and Dima simply wanted to evoke a worn-in vibe, and in beaten-up Sonic Blue with matching headstock (cool shape, too), it certainly does the trick. Non-distressed instruments are, of course, also available.

Hardware and electrics-wise, everything is super quality. Locking tuners and floating vibrato bridge are both from Gotoh’s superlative 510 range, while volume and no-load tone pots are CTS 500k, the three-way toggle and two slider switches come from the legendary Switchcraft stable, while the jack socket is Pure Tone. It’s a great line-up across the board, but how will it fare in action?

Specs

• PRICE: $3,300 | £2,950 with hard case
• ORIGIN: Ukraine
• TYPE: Offset double-cutaway solidbody electric
• BODY: Solid European alder
• NECK: 1-piece distressed, tinted maple with painted headstock, medium C profile with easy pickup-end adjustment 
• SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”)
• NUT/WIDTH: Bell bronze, adjustable/42mm
• FINGERBOARD: Hard rock maple with titanium reinforcement; 241.3mm (12”) radius; ‘Trinity’ inlays in black
• FRETS: 22 extra-hard nickel silver, medium jumbo
• HARDWARE: Gotoh 2-point 510 vibrato (chrome); angled 4-bolt neckplate, butterfly string retainers, thick cream acrylic pickguard, chrome control plates, duralumin knobs w/ wooden inserts 
• TUNERS: Gotoh 510 locking
• STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 55mm
• ELECTRICS: Valiant Guitars M80 HSS set; single CTS 500k volume and CTS 500k ‘no load’ tone pots; 3-way Switchcraft selector switch plus parallel/series/single-coil slider for each pickup set 
• WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.4/7.5
• OPTIONS: Multiple options, including pickups, colours, pickguard styles/material, fixed or vibrato bridge, stainless steel or nickel silver frets, etc 
• RANGE OPTIONS: Mercury Primal (£2,750) is more or less our guitar but without distressing. Mercury Distressed M (£3,595) is again much like ours but with Jazzmaster style vibrato bridge). Mercury Maximus (£3,395) features no distressing but a fine-quality figured top. 
• LEFT-HANDERS: Yes, no extra cost (see dealer)
• FINISH: Distressed Sonic Blue (as reviewed); range of colours is vast
• CONTACT: Valiant Guitars

Build quality, usability and sounds

As mentioned, the neck is indeed a C shape, but that slightly slimmer profile, with satin finish and bare wood here and there, gives it a lovely feel in the hand. It also seems wider than its standard 42mm (1.65-inch) nut width might suggest. The fret ends are beautifully dressed, and the fretboard edges perfectly rolled so there’s no sharp or ‘hard’ feel. Overall, it’s a very comfortable and ergonomic play.

There are a few buzzes and rattles around the lower to middle frets. However, Valiant informed us that, in order to get the Mercury to us quickly, there wasn’t time for a full setup.

It’s also fair to state that our review is being written on the UK’s hottest June days on record. And we all know what havoc temperature and humidity – either way – can wreak on our guitars’ necks.

The good news is that the simplicity of the truss rod and bridge adjustment (that Gotoh 510 vibrato is extremely responsive and tuneful, too) meant that we had the strings singing clear and clean in about five minutes. Doubtless Valiant will do the final fettling on the Mercury’s return. But this is a really great neck.

Sounds-wise, it takes a while to get one’s head around what’s going on here, so strap yourself in. But persevere, as your intrepid reviewer did, and you are treated to a wondrous array of tones, from dreamy ambient vibes at one end to out-and-out filth at the other.

Looking at the pickup array, you can think of it in two different ways: as four separate single coils, or as two humbuckers, with the neck and middle coils some distance apart. Therefore, the bridge ‘humbucker’ is actually two independent single coils, and the neck and middle ‘single coils’ are also configurable together as humbucking.

The Switchcraft three-way toggle selects neck (neck and middle together as a humbucker, or neck single coil only), the middle position is all pickups on (as four singles or two doubles), and the bridge setting offers full humbucker or just the single coil closest to the bridge.

And that’s before you get to the two ‘ser’ (series), ‘par’ (parallel) and ‘sc’ (single coil) sliders. The one nearest the neck operates on the two large-pole single coils, while the other focuses on the bridge unit(s). Boiling it down to the essence, pretty much any combination of pickups, both single coil and humbucker – including all four on at once – is available.

That’s a lot to take in, but switching and finding some simply stunning sounds only takes a few minutes. In practice, this means you have a studio guitar par excellence – perhaps like Brian May’s Red Special – but playing live you can choose to select whatever tones your music requires. The Mercury must surely be the most versatile guitar this reviewer has played in a very long time. And if he can work it out, anyone can.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

Blending traditional design with the new is a far more hazardous journey than many might suspect. Some guitar designers have attempted to imbue the familiar with their own styling touches but failed miserably.

The Gavrylenko brothers on the other hand, perhaps due to their Ukrainian heritage or simply because they understand guitars so well, have done the opposite.

While there are enough visual cues to evoke instruments we know and love, there’s no rip-off here but bags of personality and, dare we say, both passion and fun put into the process.

Sure, our Mercury benefitted from a tweak or two using the simple tools provided, but we eliminated the issue easily.

Guitar World verdict: A rattle or two doesn’t detract from the fact that this is one of the most impressive designs we’ve encountered in quite a while. Indeed, we take our hats off to this brave young team. Long live the blue and the yellow!

Hands-on videos

The Studio Rats

Better Than My Masterbuilt Guitars - Valiant Mercury - YouTube

Watch On

Kris Barosci

Strat On Steroids But It's Original Too 🤯 | Valiant Mercury - YouTube

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• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.