Yob Mike, Neurosis Scott, and now Dark Castle Stevie (and USX Nate)
are all on board with this luthier of troo doom...

http://www.monsonguitars.com/home.html

any thoughts, reviews, inclinations to buy one for yourself?

upon first glance, the Harvester, Savage, and Nomad styles speak to me

Most of them are a bit much for my taste, though clearly very nicely made. The guitars you mentioned are the better ones, the basses I can't really find anything I like much.
I notice the artists with the unreadable band names have the most extreme shapes.

Same here. The woods and finishes are beautiful, but most of 'em are too pointy for my tastes. The Sniper and the Doomsayer are better. Harvester is offa the Explorer template and another decent looker, as you point out, as is yer Nomad.

Is that Mazrim's guitar company?

I'd rather spend the extra couple of hundred, and get one o' these

i agree. perhaps very nice quality in make. but god awful in looks.

I got kind of pumped when I saw that Mike and Stevie had these guitars and thought they would be worth a look and possibly saving the $1300 to buy one. I figured a custom made guitar at that price would be pretty awesome. However, upon further browsing of the designs, I really couldn't find one that made me think I really have to have it. I'm a big fan of a lot of the BC Rich designs, but these are a bit too extreme for me, which is a bummer because I would rather throw my money towards a company like this, that offer quality at a good price.....

The only bass one that looks interesting is the archangel for the upper fret access I have trouble reading the upper frets on a lot of my basses.

These look like they were designed by 14-year-olds for 14-year-olds.

Those are seriously fucking ugly guitars. They are like a parody of pointy guitars. Like some kind of exaggerated caricature.

I wouldn't feel right playing one unless I had a full-length leather trenchcoat, dyed jet black hair and blood-red contact lenses. Brutal!!

Or a double lip piercing and a full body tattoo...

To be fair though, Dark Castle are fuckin awesome

True enough, Neil.

Post ironic hockey stick guitars with active pick ups? Not into it.

Remember when Mazrim would be mocked for playing such axes? He didn't give a shit because he was into 'em. That was kind of cool, I thought. Like fuck you guys, I WANT a guitar that's shaped like a Bauer Supreme bolted onto the Glaive from "Krull." In fact make it Nissan Xterra yellow with some desert camo pin stripes. And give me 6 EMGS!

But these designs are more like "look at thyne doomstaff which art so grymm!" You know it's that self-aware black metal thing. But obviously Dark Castle, Yob and Neurosis fucking rule, so fuck it.

noselips. hot.

horrible looking guitars. woof

not sure what it is, but i've got a thing for stevie.

For the record, that guitar she's holding plays like motherfucking FIRE. The finish is kickass on it, the fretwork is kickass, the sound is kickass. That guitar fucking rules.

For the record, I think these guitars are horrible but I appreciate the build quality and work involved. But I would never diss somebody for playing them.
I like exotic designs but there has to be some flow and order to them. These look like they've been used to murder Space Marines! But if that's your bag, have at it and more power to you.