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The Epiphone Slash Les Paul Standard Plus Top is one of two guitars, the other by Gibson and costing twice as much, released to celebrate the man who Total Guitar magazine credited with reinventing the Les Paul.
Cast your mind back to 1988 if you can remember that far back. Blues and rock guitarists alike were ignoring the great guitar in favour of Fender Strats and variations on the Strat body shape from the likes of Ibanez and Charvel. Think of the big name guitarists of the time Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Vai, Joe Satriani, SRV, Clapton, and there’s not an LP among them. Then along came the curly-haired, top-hatted, chain-smoking, goofy-grinned genius sporting a Les Paul and playing what would become some of the greatest riffs of the decade on Guns n Roses seminal album, Appetite for Destruction. The Les Paul was back.
Fast forward nearly twenty years to the launch of Guitar Hero III and there he is again. On the front of the box, in the adverts, on the marketing material, playing a Les Paul.
Is it any wonder Gibson released special editions as a tribute?
But what of the Epiphone Slash Les Paul Standard Plus Top itself? Well, it’s as true to the great man as you would expect. Specified by Slash himself and finished in tobacco sunburst, the Les Paul Standard has a special Slash-profile mahogany set long tenon neck, LockTone tun-o-matic bridge and stopbar which has clasps to stop it coming loose while you change strings, and twin Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro II humbuckers.
Total Guitar magazine in the UK gave it four stars out of five, and Guitar World said “Epiphone’s Custom Shop Slash Signature Les Paul Standard Plus Top lives up to the hype, delivering the Slash sound at a price that average players can afford.”
At around $1200, its several hundred dollars more expensive than a regular Epi Les Paul Standard, but it’s also less than half the price of the Gibson Slash signature. Whether or not you’re a Slash fan, elements like the long tenon neck, LockTone stopbar and Duncan humbuckers make this a great guitar.
[...] the cover star for one of the biggest video games of the decade, Guitar Hero III, and has had a Slash signature model guitar made in his honour by both Gibson and Epiphone — and very fine guitars they are [...]