The guitars crafted by the relatively new Florida-based maker Lust for Tone, headed by brothers Greg and Mark Simpson and their pal Blake Burns, might follow familiar templates, but they offer startling originality at every turn.
The guitars crafted by the relatively new Florida-based maker Lust for Tone, headed by brothers Greg and Mark Simpson and their pal Blake Burns, might follow familiar templates, but they offer startling originality at every turn. The guitars’ foundations are formed of premium reclaimed old-growth and air-dried woods, often including exotic timbers. Proponents of eco-friendly practices in general, they eschew plastic trim, crafting knobs and pickguards from wood or metal, and use old-world finishing techniques that exclude any toxic solvents, while loading the results with top-shelf, third-party hardware, and hand-wound, in-house pickups. Both guitars were tested through a tweed Deluxe and a custom JTM-45 style head and cab with an assortment of overdrive pedals, as well as a Fractal AX8 through studio monitors.
ENVY
This T-shaped Envy in Lust for Tone’s upmarket Luxe Edition might ring out as pricey for a guitar you likely haven’t heard of yet, but its spec sheet reads like a shopping list from a boutique parts convention. The body is made from a single piece of fine-grained ribbon mahogany with a beautifully figured bookmatched koa cap complemented by a koa control-cavity cover on the back. The bolt-on, one-piece neck is carved from Jatoba, a dense, medium-brown hardwood from Central America. The pickup rings are oiled and polished walnut, knobs are knurled Bolivian rosewood with inlaid copper indicator dots, and the nut is unbleached vintage bone. Babicz’s excellent six-saddle through-body bridge system anchors the tail end, while Hipshot locking open-gear tuners with custom flamed-koa buttons take the strings at the other end. Lust for Tone has loaded in a pair