ESP Alexi-600

Whoa, Jack's gone all metal today, aha, nah, Jack is just reviewing a guilty pleasure, a guitar I've always liked, maybe something to do with the player of whom is its creator, Alexi Laiho. The Alexi-600 is Alexi's signature model. I'm a huge fan of Alexi, and so is Kirk Hammet! He gets slated by some for in the modern age being part of a scene, playing a lot of corporate metal to sell records. This I somewhat agree with, but the first two Children of Bodom albums, Something Wild and Hatebreeder were genuine guitar greatness, shredtastic. This is back when they were still playing melodic metal, it was technical and fast and incredibly catchy, the Tokyo Warhearts live album is a must listen if you haven't already, it just shows how good they are, and how accurate Alexi is himself. Modern albums lost some of this melody and technicality, as fast running solos got replaced with heavy muted chords and outlandish whammy tricks, taking away from the true brilliance of early Children of Bodom. But despite the change, one thing remained the same, the quality of Alexi's sound. Why? Well because he's been playing an ESP for the past 7 years, his signature Alexi-600 model. ESP's reputation is unquestionable, they make fantastic guitars, that have brought in guitarists ranging from all ends of the guitar world, from Ron Wood of the Stones to Nergal of Behemoth.



So lets dive into Alexi's 600 signature model. This will be quite brief, as there isn't all that much to explain, which is possibly the beauty of this guitar. It has just one pickup, a humbucker in the bridge position. So its not got the greatest versatility? You don't need it, this guitar was only really designed for one genre, and that is metal. So what is the best possible pickup for this guitar? An EMG of course, specifically an EMG-HZ, one of the best and most popular pickups on the market, due to its undoubted quality. It's so heavy, yet so clean, it's truly marvellous. Having just the one humbucker pickup gives this guitar a real feel of class and precision, it doesn't need anything else, its got all it needs in just that one pickup, and this leaves the body looking quite empty, which is awesome. The humbucker being in the bridge position gives it the heaviest sound available. The Alexi-600 also has a licensed Floyd Rose 1000 Series tremolo. Floyd Rose are the original, and only make quality tremolo systems, this is no exception, a sound and resolute trem system that gives you great range and strength. I love floating trem's, they look really technical, and I love Floyd Rose trem's the most, because they're such good quality. The guitar has just the one knob, for volume, but I don't see why you'd ever want that lower than 11, this guitar was built for power and deafening volumes.

The design of the Alexi-600 does a lot for me, its simplicity gives it respectability. I like the yellow or the purple, but given the choice would take the yellow. It's a great V shape, it's classy, it's not trying to be too metal, it's how things should be. Its simplistic layout just makes it real quality, it doesn't need all the mod-cons to be a superb guitar, just a pickup. The guitar also has unique custom sharktooth fret inlays, wound into a ebony fretboard, which just amplifies quality. There is a cutout for access to the lower frets, which looks great and really works the part. The neck is made of maple, and it has that brilliant ESP headstock, that you have to be careful with when using, it's lethal, and metal! It has a locking nut, which adds to the tuning sturdiness. It also has grover tuners, the top machine heads.

This guitar is fantastic, I'll probably never own one due to not being a metal player in a band, but maybe one day I'll make the switch, and this will be topping my list of metal guitars. So what do you think of Bodom, Alexi and his signature Alexi-600 model? Played one? Please do leave comments. Thanks.