It’s a pity because in all other respects the binding on the body and neck is very well applied. We obliged to point out some inaccurate binding scraping – it’s actually slightly better on the back than the front, but in places the binding is so thinly exposed that it’s barely visible. Confining the shading to the body edges is very much an Epiphone feature – the Gibson inspiration here doesn’t extend to a ‘teardrop’ burst, though you will find it on the Blueberry Burst and non-figured Vintage Sunburst incarnations. We particularly like the soft transition from the ‘raspberry’ into amber and the flame maple veneer is nicely enhanced on the front and back of the instrument.

This is an ES-335 to get you noticed and the factory deserves a lot of credit for the finish quality. The block markers and impressively flamey maple on the front and back mark this out as the ES-335 Figured model – plain tops and dots are available elsewhere in the range. It’s all about giving players much more of the Gibson look and feel at an affordable price and, in common with the Inspired By solidbodies, our ES-335 has the open-book Kalamazoo headstock and hand-wired CTS control pots. The addition of semi-solid and acoustic models to Epiphone’s Inspired By Gibson series is both inevitable and welcome.

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