Perhaps that three-ply maple/poplar/maple top, back and sides just wanted to be carved, but there’s a contoured, roundness to the way the USA Casino feels tucked under your arm, and while not a small body, by any means, it doesn’t feel so big once you’re playing it. The artfulness of that body cut is palpable, as well.

It’s subtle, but noteworthy, and no doubt the Gibson ABR-1 Tune-o-matic bridge and Thinline Trapeze tailpiece play their roles in that, too. Your left hand senses that this neck is attached to a slim hollow body, and so your hand is informed by that. There’s also a nice way that the quarter-sawn spruce binding on the hollow body seems to “talk” to the neck as you play. Look to the Strokes’ Nick Valensi for evidence of its stateside power.) However, they give licks and rhythms a very pleasing midfrequency spread and a dynamic, hard-to-peg character, making the USA Casino a wicked electric blues guitar, full of character and punch, but with great detail and grit as well. Likewise, the two Gibson USA Dogear P-90 pickups here may not be some bluesmen’s first choice, though they’ve been a key go-to for T-Bone Walker, Freddie King and, lately, Gary Clark, Jr. Keep in mind, this is essentially a Gibson 330-style guitar with high-output single-coil P-90 pickups, so while it’s naturally a little more wily and open sounding than, say, a 335, when played through a cranked tube amp, in most other contexts the Casino can ably handle a lot of the same basic territory, with a wild edge of its own. That is especially true of a Casino as premium as this model, which is a huge improvement over more recent Asian-made Casinos. Well, it would be a mistake to continue to pigeonhole the Casino as strictly a guitar for British-inspired power pop, no matter how ably and powerfully it works in that context.

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