“An outline that’s both striking and original with an almost bygone vibe”: West Valley Indiana review

What is it?

While so many small guitar-makers can’t seem to shake off the obvious classics when it comes to style, West Valley’s Josh Stopford has a different vision.

The Indiana is far from an inspired-by design: this is a lightly offset outline that can play host to various hardware and pickup setups. Along with offering the start-up, single-pickup Junior model and the semi-solid Slim, our top-line model shows off the full potential of his vision.

Based around the longer Fender scale length with a mahogany neck attached with bolts (not screws) to a thin maple-topped obeche back, the Indiana is hard to pigeonhole. It’s offered with an offset-style vibrato, but our sample’s tune-o-matic and stud tailpiece nod to Gibson style, which is reflected in the Sunbear humbucker at the bridge and soapbar-sized staple-magnet pickup in the neck position.

The drive is fast with just a master volume, tone and three-way toggle, with no extra sounds from pull-switch pots.

From the off, it comes across as a very purposeful gigging tool, and with Josh’s background in setup and maintenance for a number of bands (including Idles, Supergrass, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The The, Massive Attack and The Stranglers), that’s not so surprising.

What’s more, this build has detailed craft, with the classy tortoiseshell top-edge binding enclosing a wide black/white purfling, which also surrounds the fingerboard with an inner and thin white coachline.

The guitar’s face is flat, but there’s a light ribcage contour on the back, though the heel stays old-school and rectangular. Then there’s the finish: the Vintage White face is aged with plenty of cross cracking that’ll get more noticeable as use wears in. The thinner oil/wax finish to the vertically striped grain of the obeche is stained to tie in colour-wise with the almost bare-wood feeling of the neck.

Overall, like the aged Gotoh and TonePros hardware or the rear offset neckplate, there’s little impression that this is a shiny new production guitar. This almost antique, old-guitar impression continues with the guitar’s neck geometry.

More like a Fender, there’s little back angle to the neck pitch, and where it joins the body it sits quite high, not least due to the tune-o-matic bridge. Both pickups sit high as well, so perhaps a taller mounting ring, certainly at the bridge, would suit.

Specs

• PRICE: £3,350 (inc case)
• ORIGIN: UK
• TYPE: Offset twin-cutaway solidbody electric
• BODY: Obeche back w/ maple top
• NECK: Mahogany, ‘C’ profile, bolt-on
• SCALE LENGTH: 648mm (25.5”)
• NUT/WIDTH: Bone/42.3mm
• FINGERBOARD: Bound ebony, mother-of-pearl dot inlays, , 254-305mm (10-12”) radius
• FRETS: 22, medium
• HARDWARE: TonePros locking Nashville-style bridge with stud tailpiece, Gotoh vintage-style tuners – aged nickel-plated
• STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52.5mm
• ELECTRICS: Sunbear 58 Archive SB-PAF humbucker (bridge) w/ Staple V soapbar size P-90 single coil (neck), 3-way lever pickup selector switch, master volume and master tone
• WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.5/7.7
• OPTIONS: Effectively each guitar is a custom-build. The base-price of the Indiana is £2,995. Current lead-time from order to delivery is approx. 10-12 weeks
• RANGE OPTIONS: The Indiana Slim (from £2,690) is semi-solid with more of a T-style sonic intent; the single-pickup Junior (from £2,250) strips things back with plenty of options
• LEFT-HANDERS: Yes
• FINISHES: Vintage White (as reviewed) – aged nitro top colour oil/wax to back and neck 
• CONTACT: West Valley Guitars

Playability and sounds

Rather like its purposeful intention, the Indiana doesn’t follow the ultra-light trend and weighs in at a beautiful solidbody heft of 3.5kg (7.7lb). Like the excellent strapped-on or seated feel, things feel very right straight away.

That impression is helped by the neck profile, which seems to cross Fender-like width (at the nut it’s 42.3mm and 51.5mm by the 12th fret) with quite a deep C profile that feels a little fuller than its depth dimensions suggest: 20.8mm at the 1st fret 23.4mm by the 12th.

The fretting is beautifully done, particularly at the domed ends and polished tops to the ‘narrow tall’ wire (approximately 2.47mm by 1.2mm). They’re perfectly installed on the stripy brown ebony fingerboard with its quoted 254mm to 305mm (10- to 12-inch) PRS-to-Gibson-like radius.

The setup really suits the guitar and nothing seems to get in the way of the important bit: playing. Well, that’s not entirely true, you do notice the square treble-side edge of the heel in upper positions, so a little rounding to make that ‘disappear’ wouldn’t go amiss.

There’s a good liveliness when unplugged that seems to reflect the slightly longer scale/bolt-on style, but with that there’s the noticeable push and firmness of the well-anchored bridge and tailpiece. It kind of sounds tough and strong, and after warming up our amps with a Knaggs Kenai – itself a big-sounding guitar – the Indiana holds up with slightly cleaner lower mids and a bit more sparkle on top.

As with every Sunbear pickup set we’ve encountered, these pickups seem to tell a story. The bridge has superb clean blues snap and attack with a mid-honk that’s behaved, not over-peaky. Add some lighter crunch and it’s a big ol’ sound, and just pulling back the volume seems to enhance that almost Fender-y ring.

The Staple at the neck, however, doesn’t pile on the cream – there’s an almost hollowed character that allows the snappy single-coil-ness to shine, and that makes the dual-pickup mix both bouncy and articulate.

Back to clean and there’s certainly more single-coil character to those two positions, and the articulation and depth of the neck is very musical indeed. We’d love to hear this pickup set on the West Valley Slim platform, especially if your tastes lie in the jazz/blues realm.

We’d say it’s not reinventing any wheel or providing a host of switchable sounds, but, for many, that would in fact be the advantage. Timeless and musical with subtlety and power.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

While it’s early days for West Valley, the Indiana seems a more than credible debut, or perhaps a statement of intent.

Each guitar is a custom build based on an outline that’s both striking and original with an almost bygone vibe, and there are plenty of ways to style it, in both looks and sound.

Guitar World verdict: There’s some great craft on show, too, but this guitar seems to be very focused on the important bits: the feel and sound, both of which are very good indeed. It’s an instrument that needs a stage, too – classic voicing, simple yet versatile and very road‑worthy. West Valley is certainly one to watch!

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