20 years later, it is remixed entirely by Karat Faye, and the answer is: It was mis-engineered!  This version sounds much better than the original on Frontier or its CD reissue, also on Frontier.  It’s best to throw out whatever copy you might have (if you didn’t already) and get this instead.  It still doesn’t sound great; like the Iggy remix of Raw Power, there’s only so much you can do if the original recordings just weren’t that well done—especially in the rhythm section (Raw Power’s Achilles heal, as great as that LP is).  Wild is never going to sound as sharp as its predecessor, and that’s that.  Incredible, ex-jazz drummer Lucky Lerher still sounds like his drums were all captured by room mics instead of anything nearer to what he was hitting, and the late Roger Rogerson’s bass (look how bad he sounds even when playing by himself on “Defamation Innuendo!”) and Greg Hetson’s guitar lack definition as well. But now that the mix is a lot louder, with more separation, and a cleanup of the overall mud, Keith Morris’s vocals sound more convincing, like his Group Sex and original lineup work.  And the best songs, such as the standout “Letter Bomb,” “Trapped,” “Leave Black Flag Me Alone” and “Stars and Stripes,” sound more like the band that did as much as anyone in 1980-1981 (along with Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, TSOL, D.O.A., and Vancouver’s Subhumans) to make hardcore the first strain of punk to catch on in the U.S. beyond a dozen hip cities.
     Of course, there’s no making up for the other problem, that half of these songs weren’t well written, as if they were hastily composed to fill out a second LP—but that’s a different story. Besides, the worst song here is still a damn sight preferable to everything they recorded following the loss of Rogerson and Lerher after 1983’s Golden Shower of Hits.  (And will someone please break any instrument found in Rogerson’s replacement, Zander Schloss’s hands?)  Note: Porterhouse has also reissued Group Sex, but as yet we haven’t received one.  Perhaps a review next time…

----Jack Rabid