Epiphone Les Paul Tribute ‘Prizm' Plus

Bright colours and brighter ideas offer a classic guitar a fresh twist.

- Jonathan Horsley

There’s plenty that is audacious about the Epiphone Les Paul Tribute ‘Prizm’ Plus Outfit. And we’re not just talking about a multicolour finish that would be more commonly sighted flying above the treeline in the Amazon, nor the SEO-friendly, convoluted name it goes by (we’ll call it the Tribute Plus for brevity). No, it’s in the fashion that Epiphone has equipped this Chinese-built electric with pro-quality parts to create a premium guitar that might just make you think twice before plumping for one of Gibson’s more affordable US models.

Epiphone has form in such manoeuvres. Its premium Les Pauls have always been super-playable and affordable, with a tone invoking its parent brand, Gibson. The Tribute Plus is no different. Take the pickups. Here we have a Gibson USA ’57 Classic humbucker in the neck, with the ever-so-slightly hotter ’57 Classic Plus in the bridge. As the name suggests, these are vintage voiced replicas of the PAF-style humbuckers that were first designed by Seth Lover in the 1950s. You would expect to see them in a Gibson USA model, perhaps an SG ’61 Reissue, and yet here they are, seated in a generous slab of mahogany capped with flame maple.