The Los Angeles band X was always light-years better than the bands it was lumped in with in L.A.'s early-'80s punk scene. X's debut album, Los Angeles, remains among the greatest albums ever made, and its follow-up, Wild Gift, is considered in many quarters to be even better. It’s certainly more nuanced and a bit longer. Where Los Angeles played like a bulldozer with a Ferrari engine, Wild Gift is more like a bulldozer attached to a tourist bus. The poetic sketches are as smart and heartbreaking as ever. “We’re Desperate” comes from a place Charles Bukowski romanticized, while “Adult Books” proved the band wasn't there to pay homage to the city and its bohemian underground but to take notes and transcend the old dead ends. The bonus material on the deluxe version is essential to the band's story. X was always a killer live group, and its rough demos and early singles for Dangerhouse Records explain why The Doors’ Ray Manzarek, who produced X's first four albums, was the best ally it could have wished for.