Faith Mars FRMG review

With design handled in the UK by Brit luthier Patrick Eggle, Faith is now a major international player.

Boasting planet-themed models, very clean modern design and affordable Indonesian manufacturing, Faith has won many awards, and judging by this recent introduction, will continue to do so.

The standard dreadnought is the Saturn, available in nearly all of the Faith series. The 'drop shouldered' Mars appears in only the Classic Burst, Signature, and this two-guitar Mahogany series.

The 'drop' or 'slope' shoulder dreadnought goes back to the 1942 Gibson J-45, which featured rounder shoulders. As ever, there's much debate over the tonality of the rounded-shoulder design over the square shoulder but it's often down to other differences, not least materials, bracing, scale length and constructional style.

The price includes a hardcase, and amounts to a very good deal. Top and back are finely centre-jointed, and the darker wood bindings look like rosewood - more milk chocolate-coloured than the Macassar ebony used for the fingerboard, head facing and heel cap.

Internally, the top has scalloped spruce X-bracing, and it's very tidily done, as are all the subtle details, such as the abalone soundhole ring, 12th-fret 'F' inlay and simple, stylised Faith headstock logo.

Finishing is very sharp with no pooling around the bolt-on, properly quarter-sawn mahogany neck's heel. The headstock is spliced on to the main neck under the 1st and 2nd frets, and the heel block is a separate piece.

It's very well done, as is the deep, D-section neck and the fretting - the 'board is 'invisibly' bound in the same material as the fingerboard, which means we don't see any fret tang. Tidy.

By design, the FRMG is a big ol' bird, with a pretty standard 'all-purpose' nut width of 43mm (1.69 inches), and 55mm (2.17-inch) string spacing at the bridge. You wanna strum or pick? Both work well here. With a low - but not ultra-low - setup, and wide electric-like frets, a little shredding is perfectly possible, too.

The voice is a little tight and bright, but we'd expect this to mellow with playing; the hardwood mahogany top gives a more fundamental, almost compressed sound, compared with spruce - yes, we're generalising - and it makes for an excellent rootsy rock rhythm bed - think classic-era Rolling Stones.

The low end is fairly piano-like, less 'soft' than our well-gigged Martin dreadnought. The surprise is the long sustain and delicate tonality with fingerpicked, dropped tunings.

There's no electro version - the only all-mahogany electro is the Neptune baby jumbo - but with dual strap buttons, the FRMG is stage-ready, and a quality soundhole pickup would work extremely well.