By Andrew Leyenhorst
ROAD TEST
ESP LTD M-HT Arctic Metal Electric Guitar
For the last few decades , Japan-based ESP Guitars has established itself as a leading manufacturer of premium guitars and basses , and their instruments are brandished by many revered players ; from Metallica ’ s Kirk Hammett to Ben Burnley of Breaking Benjamin , and countless others . If you keep even the furthest eye on the heavy music scene , you ’ ve seen and heard ESP guitars in abundance .
In 2020 , under its more-affordable LTD brand , ESP launched the Black Metal line of guitars ; a gamut of their classic guitar shapes and designs , dressed up in a menacing black satin finish , and sporting a single bridge pickup ; made to be an ultra-simple option for heavy players with little interest in fiddling with knobs and switches . A year later , the company has followed up with the Arctic Metal line , which takes the same philosophy and opts for a gorgeous white finish instead .
For this test , I tried out the Arctic Metal M-HT , a simple double-cutaway design with neck-thru construction and an alder body . This particular model boasts a 25.5-in . scale length , as well as LTD Locking tuners , a Hipshot bridge ( all in black ), and 24 XJ stainless steel frets .
Visually , the guitar looks beautiful . The matte finish , which ESP calls “ snow white satin ,” is very striking , especially punctuated by its jet-black hardware . It ’ s simply a very bold-looking instrument , and it really is a treat to look at . The weight is respectable ; it ’ s not too heavy , it ’ s not too light . It ’ s a well-balanced instrument in terms of the feeling in your hands and the overall weight and heft of it . Think heavier than a Strat , but with some pounds to put on before it would balance a scale against a Les Paul .
In terms of the playability , the Macassar ebony fretboard feels fantastic , and the threepiece maple neck is very much tailored towards fast fingers from top to bottom . This can be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on how and what you play ; with the combination of the instrument ’ s wide neck ( nut width of 1.692 in .) and a rather flat Extra Thin U contour , I found I was really having to work my wrist in new and sometimes fatiguing ways to comfortably fret the fourth , fifth , and sixth strings for my more rhythmic riffs or chording . Of course , this could be a failing of my own technique as mainly a rhythm player , but it ’ s an exaggerated tweak I ’ ve not had to make before across many different guitar brands and models . That being said , if you ’ re a lead-oriented player and / or play a lot of quick flourishes or tapping passages , the neck will most likely be to your liking , as once again , it plays as though it ’ s designed for quickness and agility .
One thing that I noticed is that from an ergonomic standpoint , especially for playing heavy music , it ’ s really beneficial not having a neck pickup , especially if you ’ re doing a lot of chugging or muting and really digging into the strings . Depending on where your picking hand lives , you ’ re not having a pickup brick getting in your way . If you happen to pick a little bit closer to the neck , you ’ ve got more depth to really dig into your strings and fatten up your chugs .
Tonally , if you ’ re a metal player , you probably already have a decent idea of what this guitar sounds like out of the box , and you ’ d mostly be correct ; however , there is a surprise . The stockequipped bridge-positioned EMG 81TW is an upgraded version of the renowned EMG 81 active humbucker , adding a second single-coil pickup into the same form factor , switchable
via the guitar ’ s lone push-pull volume knob . This means that the M-HT Arctic Metal will pull off those huge , scorching , humbucker-flavoured tones with ease , but can also delve into a more twinkly single-coil-style sound , which definitely gives the instrument some room to play with more than just rip-roaring metal tones . It cleans up really nicely !
Just remain mindful that there ’ s no neck counterpart on this guitar , so you ’ ll be getting quite intimate with bridge tones . There ’ s also no tone knob , so any sculpting will have to be done elsewhere in the signal chain . I also recommend that players be quite discerning about the amount of gain they dial up , especially when paired with an overdrive ; I found that when really pushing an amp , there was a lot of throaty build-up in the lower mid-range that I didn ’ t love . Prior to that point though , there ’ s no short supply of killer metal tone here .
From its name to its feature set , to the Black Metal line that inspired it , ESP ’ s LTD M-HT Arctic Metal makes its point quite clearly : it and its Arctic Metal brethren are tailor-made guitars for players that quite literally want to cut through the noise of the heavily-saturated electric guitar market and go for an instrument that overtly stares them in the face , saying : “ This is what I do , this is what I ’ m for , I ’ m really good at it , pick me up and play something heavy .” One pickup ( with two voicings ), one knob , no problems . It ’ s as uncomplicated as it gets ; it ’ s a machine made for metal , and while you ’ re more than welcome to try it on whatever you want , this instrument knows its purpose and delivers in droves .
Andrew Leyenhorst is a Niagara-based producer , engineer , mixer , and Consulting Editor at
Canadian Musician .
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