Warren Zevon's major-label debut was like nothing else that came out of Los Angeles in 1976. He ran in the same mellow-rock circles with Jackson Browne (who produced this record) and the Eagles, but Zevon's L.A. was the flip-side of the glitzy, coke-glazed overkill of "Hotel California" — a darker, more desperate city that looked more like the short stories of author James Ellroy or the whiplash punk of X. Warren Zevon captures the singer/songwriter at his peak as a black humorist. In the driving rock & roll of "Poor Poor Pitiful Me," he assumes the guise of a self-centered ladies' man. His coarse vocal delivery on the strident "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" foreshadows the dark melodrama of Nick Cave. And in what remains Zevon's all-time best song, the Mexican-flavored "Carmelita" is a simple character sketch about a junkie's plight. Stripped of Browne's seventies-rock sheen, some of the demos and alternate takes on the bonus disc — particularly a beautifully spare "Hasten Down the Wind" — are even more affecting than the original album versions.