Latest articles by Michael Astley-Brown
This week’s essential guitar tracks: from lead guitar lightning to one of the most violent riffs of the year
Everything you need to hear this week, featuring Vexed, Jason Isbell, Avatar, Plush, Tommy Emmanuel, Des Rocs and oh so very many more – now with Spotify playlist!
That time Guthrie Govan covered Rage Against the Machine’s Bulls on Parade and took Tom Morello’s solo to mind-boggling new heights
Some groundbreaking lead work – including two-hand tapping with a glass slide – highlighted the virtuoso’s awe-inspiring performance
Essential guitar tracks – hear our bumper edition of the latest six-string bangers, all wrapped up in a Spotify playlist
As we recover from the NAMM melee, explore this 26-track pick of the pickers from recent weeks
Chris Cornell’s final Soundgarden recordings will finally see the light of day – but what will the material sound like?
The iconic grunge band’s surviving members and the Estate of Chris Cornell have settled their long-running lawsuit
NAMM 2023 live: all the biggest news as it happened
All the guitar gear and goings-ons you need to know about – direct from the show floor
Watch Tom DeLonge’s new Fender Starcaster make its live debut at Blink-182’s surprise Coachella set
A production-line signature model could well be on the cards
NAMM 2023 news: all the latest guitar news, rumors and predictions
Everything launched this year at the world’s biggest guitar gear show
NAMM 2023: Seagull celebrates over 40 years of its classic S6 acoustic with the affordable new S6 Collection 1982
The new S6 promises to encapsulate the best of Seagull designs, including a wealth of desirable tone woods, for less than the price of the original
NAMM 2023: Chapman reveals classy new signature guitar for Black Stone Cherry’s Chris Robertson
The former PRS signature artist has cemented his relationship with Rob Chapman and co with a white ’n’ gold semi-hollow ML3
NAMM 2023: Bare Knuckle unveils the Triptych single coil set, achieving Rabea Massaad’s vision of “the perfect Strat tone”
The new signature pickups aim to satisfy fans of John Mayer and Stevie Ray Vaughan as well as players of heavier styles
NAMM 2023: Godin gives its G-Tour nylon-string-meets-electric guitar an Arctik Blue makeover
The familiar-looking acoustic-electric gets a new look but retains the same slinky playability
NAMM 2023: Ashdown teams 30W British tube tone with Two Notes cab modeling on the remarkably fully featured MF 484 2.N
The stealthily tricked-out amp head seeks to combine the best of analog and digital worlds with a wealth of smart features – and it can even charge your phone
NAMM 2023: Did Kernom just announce the most versatile fuzz pedal ever created?
The MOHO Magmatic Fuzz Station is billed as the first augmented analog fuzz and comes with a wildcard Electricity control
NAMM 2023: Reverend unveils two of the show’s standout signature models with the Stacey Dee Signature Dee-Dee and Linh Le Signature Lil Linhbacker bass
SoCal pop-punk outfit Bad Cop/Bad Cop get outfitted with a single-pickup Orchid Pink offset and semi-hollow bass
James Hetfield was offered the chance to buy the Greeny Les Paul before Kirk Hammett, but he turned it down: “I’m a real idiot”
Watch Hammett demo Peter Green’s iconic Gibson for Howard Stern as his Metallica bandmate makes the surprise revelation
NAMM 2023: Ernie Ball announces Slinky Flatwound electric guitar strings and Flatwound Short-Scale bass strings
The new launches are the world’s “first and only” cobalt flatwound strings
NAMM 2023: Revv unveils the Shawn Tubbs Tilt Boost – a tone-sculpting workhorse it hopes will be “your new always on pedal”
The new design downsizes Tubbs’ signature overdrive for a compact sound-shaping boost the session great never turns off
NAMM 2023: IK Multimedia reckons its new Axe I/O One is “the ultimate affordable audio interface designed for guitar and bass players” – and they might be right
With its low price tag, re-amping functionality and TONEX SE thrown in, IK appears to have nailed the brief
NAMM 2023: Fishman launches mini pedal range designed specifically for acoustic guitarists
The AFX line is designed to handle the resonances of amplified acoustics, and includes the AcoustiVerb, Broken Record Looper/Sampler, Pro EQ Mini and Pocket Blender
Jackson and Suicide Silence’s Mark Heylmun reimagine the Rhoads as a brutal 7-string metal machine
Reverse headstock, 26.5” scale and Fishman pickups? This ain’t your dad’s Rhoads V
Joe Doe may have just revealed the wackiest guitar designs of NAMM 2023 – meet the Gambler, Hot Rod and Gas Jockey
Taking cues from ’50s automobiles and Las Vegas casinos, these affordable models stand apart from any other electric guitars you’re likely to see this year
NAMM 2023: Electro-Harmonix makes Josh Scott’s dream a reality with the release of his Lizard Queen Octave Fuzz pedal design
Based on the JHS Pedals mastermind’s vintage EHX effects pedal that never existed, the new octave fuzz is available in big-box and Nano formats
Fender’s radical new CuNiFe pickups have arrived, including “the first truly innovative voice in single-coil Stratocaster pickups in a generation” – hear them in action
Based on magnets used in the company’s sought-after Wide Range humbuckers, the new designs reimagine the tone of the company's most iconic guitars with the launch of CuNiFe and Cobalt Chrome Stratocaster, Telecaster and Jazzmaster pickups
