NAMM 2024: Guild’s S-100 Polara Kim Thayil blew everyone away when it debuted last fall, marking the end of years of collaboration between the legendary Soundgarden guitarist and the US brand.
Now, the momentum hasn’t stopped as the firm gears up for a substantial release of Polara electric guitars featuring a range of prices and specs.
“This updated range will appeal to a wide variety of players featuring design elements that span from classic 1970s to contemporary modern,” says Guild and, judging on the early evidence, it seems to have delivered on that promise.
As such, the US-built S-100 Polara Kim Thayil Artist Edition now sits atop of a Polara pile (complete with handwound Jason Lollar pickups and a $5,999 price tag), while the new additions – including the Polara Deluxe, Night Edition and standard – will fall under Guild’s offshore Newark St. Collection umbrella.
Polara Kim Thayil – now available in Vintage White (Image credit: Guild)
That’s the sub-brand that plays home to Thayil’s more affordable signature guitar the Polara Kim Thayil ($899 street), which is incidentally, set to get a new Vintage White colorway option for 2024.
(Image credit: Guild)
As you might expect, the specs vary across the ranges, but the base model sets the template – featuring a set-neck mahogany build with a U-shape neck, rosewood fingerboard and a Gibson-like 24 ¾” scale-length.
Then there’s a pair of hot-wound (uncovered) HB-2+ humbuckers with Alnico V magnets and a straightforward control setup of master volume, master tone and three-way pickup selector.
On the hardware front, there’s a resonant string-through-body bridge, Guild’s stopbar and Rotomatic-style tuners.
All in, it’s a feature set that offers a nice blend of classic and modern and is particularly appealing, given it comes in at a street price of $549.
The finishes are a great touch, too: offering a choice of Blue Steel, Phantom Green and Voltage Yellow – the latter certainly caught the eye of our roving Editor in Chief (over on the NAMM live blog), who dubbed it “a real retina-searer”.
(Image credit: Guild)
At the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the Polara Night Edition. A murdered-out all-black, single-pickup model, that looks like a total beast and is utterly committed to its dark theme.
Indeed, it’s so dark that we suspect it might be a black hole – and even on the press images, we struggled to make out the fact it was a single-humbucker spec.
Guild’s site says it has master volume and tone controls, but that seems to be an error, as it appears to have only a single volume knob.
That said, there is always the possibility that the tone knob was placed there originally, but has since been lost to its irresistible gravitational pull.