DETHKLOK co-creator Brendon Small launched his Dethklok Thunderhorse Explorer guitar at this year's NAMM (National Association Of Music Merchants) show, a massive music-products convention that took place January 24-27 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. You can now watch video footage of the January 25 announcement at the Gibson booth below.

Inspired by Skwisgaar Skwigelf's main axe, the Dethklok Thunderhorse Explorer is powered by Gibson BurstBucker 1 and 2 humbuckers mounted on a mahogany body to supply the deadly resonance that matches his death growl voice. All the attributes of mahogany come into play. The wide grain, very porous and lighter than most tone wood creates even more of a mellow resonance regardless of the pickup combination. Sustain is maintained but with a warmer approach and makes broader tone versatility easily with reach. The set mahogany neck with rosewood fingerboard has a '50s rounded profile that gives Skwisgaar ample support for his muscular riffing. The nut and neck both receive Gibson's revolutionary PLEK setup. The guitar wears a thin grain-textured finish that beautifully shows off the subtle mahogany wood grain beneath the lacquer, and yields a fast, comfortable playing feel on the neck back, too.

To maximize all of this tonal splendor, the Dethklok Thunderhorse Explorer is equipped with a calibrated set of Gibson's popular BurstBucker humbucking pickups, which comprises a BurstBucker 1 in the neck position and a slightly hotter BurstBucker 2 in the bridge position, for the perfect output balance between the two pickup selections. Made with unpolished Alnico II magnets and unpotted coils that are wound to slightly different numbers of turns of 42-gauge plain enamel-coated wire, just like the originals, these are some of the finest reproduction PAF ("patent applied for") style humbuckers available today.