Spear NF-Z

Right then, here we have the guitar I should of bought last time around, with hindsight. I'm now playing a lot of indie music, and this is a very indie looking guitar. To my eyes, it's a wonderful looking guitar, I love the Walnut/Mahogany body, naturally finished, which combined with the gold hardware looks fantastic. It looks like something Pete Doherty would play, which if you're in an indie band makes it top-notch. The pickups are standard Spear brand pickups, this could therefore cause a slight problem. The pickups look great because they're gold like the rest of the hardware, but if they don't sound good, you might want to switch them out, and then you'll have to find gold pickups to replace them with, too keep that fantastic look. The pickups could however be decent, combined with the guitar being a set-in neck, the sustain of this guitar should be very solid. It is also a semi-hollow body, which is fantastic, good versatility and great tone. That means it has the two swirls cut out of the body, which is just classic, like a Gibson ES or Paul Gilbert's PGM-301, I love this on guitars, I think it's really interesting and brings real class to the finished product.

The NF-Z offers you 2 volume controls, 2 tone controls and a 3-way pickup selector in the form of a toggle switch, giving you the ability to find the most accurate sounds and tones you want to create. Combined with a decent pair of pickups, this would be a brilliant guitar, for both looks and sound. Another thing I love about this guitar is the neck and the fret inlays. It's classic Les Paul, with those shiny Abalon Squares and it has 22 frets, which is standard. The gold machine heads also complete the hardware in the best possible fashion.

There are some little preferences I would've preferred if I designed the guitar. I like a whole guitar to fit together as one, so I like having the headstock the same colour as the body, and even the back of the neck if possible, unless you have something like a fender neck that is all maple. I know some people though really don't like having the back of the neck made of a body wood or painted. A lot of guitars don't have matching headstocks, but some do, and this is just a personal preference, the RG range from Ibanez is a good example, it has the best of both, and I think when you get an RG in a striking colour, with matching headstock it looks much better, unfortunately with my S470, the headstock doesn't match the body. With the spear, if the headstock was the same colour as the body, this guitar would look absolutely perfect, as it is, it's only 95% perfect, which still means I'd really love to own one. The NF-Z also has binding, like a Les Paul, this makes a guitar look a lot better in my opinion, it's like the icing on the cake.

This is a beautiful guitar, and should I start to take my indie playing into a band, it's a guitar I will be eager to acquire. Luckily, my local shop, Langdons is a Spear dealership. Spear make some guitars which are personal taste, but I believe this one is very universal, it's a classic design, it looks really classy and natural. So good people, do you love this guitar as much as I do? What do you think of all Spear Guitars? Please do leave comments, thanks!