Reverend Sensei H90 – Metallic Bronze

The Reverend Sensei H90: two pickup worlds, one seriously cool guitar

There are guitars that try to do everything and end up doing nothing particularly well. And then there’s the Reverend Sensei H90.

The H90 takes a beautifully straightforward approach: put a P90 in the neck, a humbucker in the bridge, give the player a good set neck, a comfortable Korina body and Reverend’s extremely useful Bass Contour control — and let the guitar get on with it.

And in Metallic Bronze, the Sensei H90 looks absolutely killer. The combination of the metallic bronze top, contrasting transparent brown back and dark ebony fingerboard gives this Reverend a classy but slightly dangerous appearance. Exactly as it should be.

A proper P90 + humbucker combination

The real attraction here is the pickup pairing.

At the neck you get Reverend’s new Steelhead P90. It has the familiar P90 character: punchy, raw, dynamic and wonderfully rude when you push it. Roll back the volume and it cleans up beautifully, making it equally happy with blues, classic rock, indie and anything where you actually want to hear your fingers.

At the bridge sits the Steelhead Humbucker. Bigger, thicker and more muscular, with plenty of output and a tight low end, it gives the Sensei the authority you want for heavier rock and overdriven sounds without turning into an indistinct wall of noise.

The result is a guitar with two very different voices — but voices that work together extremely well.

And then there’s Bass Contour

This is one of those Reverend features that sounds slightly odd until you use it.

Instead of cutting treble like a conventional tone control, the Bass Contour progressively removes low frequencies. Turn it down and the guitar becomes leaner, tighter and more focused. It’s particularly useful with the humbucker, where you can go from a fat, full sound to something much closer to a bright, articulate single-coil character.

It also means you can tighten up an amp that’s already producing plenty of low end without having to start changing everything on the amplifier.

Very simple. Very effective.

Korina, set neck and ebony

The Sensei H90 uses a Korina solidbody with a three-piece Korina set neck. For this new generation, Reverend has refined the body thickness, making the guitar more comfortable while keeping the resonance and punch that make Korina such an attractive choice.

The ebony fingerboard has a 12" radius and 22 frets, giving the Sensei a modern playing feel without making it feel like a clinical shred machine.

The 24 3/4" scale also puts it firmly in familiar territory for players who like the feel of a classic singlecut-style guitar.

The neck is a Medium Oval — comfortable, substantial enough to feel like a proper guitar neck, but certainly not a baseball bat.

Reverend gets the details right

As usual, Reverend hasn’t wasted money on pointless decoration. The Sensei H90 is packed with the kind of details that make a guitar better to live with.

You get Reverend Pin-Lock tuners, a Boneite nut, a Tune-O-Matic-style bridge with stop tailpiece and a dual-action truss rod with headstock access.

There’s also a treble-bleed circuit, so rolling back the volume doesn't turn your guitar into a blanket-covered version of itself.

And the Pure Tone output jack provides a firm connection and improved reliability.

In other words: the stuff you don't necessarily notice when you first look at the guitar is exactly the stuff you'll appreciate after you've owned it for a while.

The Guitar Bar verdict

The Reverend Sensei H90 is one of those guitars that makes an awful lot of sense.

The P90 gives you attitude, texture and bite. The humbucker gives you power and thickness. The Bass Contour adds another layer of versatility without covering the guitar in switches and push-pull pots.

And underneath it all is a comfortable, relatively lightweight Korina set-neck guitar with a great playing neck and excellent hardware.

The Metallic Bronze finish is just the icing on the cake.

If you’re looking for one guitar that can cover blues, indie, classic rock, alternative, hard rock and heavier stuff without feeling like a compromise, the Sensei H90 is very hard to ignore.

Two pickups. Three basic sounds. A seriously useful Bass Contour. And absolutely no need for a PhD in guitar electronics.

That's our kind of guitar.