Jackson recently received a giant horns-up from across the pond in Dear Olde Blighty, namely, an outstanding Phil Demmel Signature PDX review in the landmark 200th issue of the U.K.’s Total Guitar magazine.

The Phil Demmel Signature PDX, released earlier this year, was designed as a high-quality and highly affordable sibling to the fearsome Demmelition King V model. The Machine Head guitarist and we at Jackson aren’t all at ashamed to be somewhat biased in favor of the guitar, but the TG editors aren’t at all—and they wrote a veritable rave for the PDX.

It’s the only product called out in that issue’s “Rock and Rated” area (see photo below), and, in said review section, a number of pieces of gear are covered, but only one got the lead-in page picture—the PDX, with the sterling review appearing on the right-hand page opposite.

Some Total Guitar Phil Demmel Signature PDX review highlights:

• “Two years down the line, TG still has bittersweet memories of testing Phil Demmel’s Jackson King V signature model. Sweet because we got to luxuriate in its elitist, grand-plus spec, spew white-hot riffs and feel like the god of thunder for an afternoon. And bitter, because giving it back to Jackson felt like losing a limb. Phil feels our pain, because he was once like us. That’s why the Machine Head hero has just emerged from the Jackson workshop with a new X-Series Demmelition that looks the same but costs half … it’s streets ahead of most electrics in the sub £500 price bracket.”
• “… a sleek, well-balanced body that leads into a wide, flat neck whose compound-radius fretboard practically screams ‘solo on me!’”
• “This guitar is all about the metal and it knocks that out of the park, delivering a tone that roars at the neck, crunches at the bridge, and will satisfy punters hoping to approximate Machine Head’s dark thrash.”
• “It actually represents better value, looking the part, getting admirably close to top-dollar performance and blowing the already competitive mid-range metal market wide open.”