X-COUPLE ROARS, SOARS

“AIN’T LOVE GRAND.” X. Elektra.

John Doe and Exene Cervenka’s breakup album answers the title question in a double-edged fashion characteristic of L.A. rock’s first couple. This rolling, tumbling discourse on the end of their marriage drags you through the rubble of a bombed-out relationship, but it also carries an acknowledgment of love’s paradoxical power to enrich as it destroys.

And destroy it does. “I see what love can bring,” a seething Doe sings as he tosses the couple’s good-luck horseshoe into the weeds. “I guess we stayed in bed too long,” Exene taunts from her new boyfriend’s place. “I think I might take a ride and burn your love house down,” Doe threatens.

As things come apart, the couple negotiate, offer terms and set ultimatums. They reach standoffs and stalemates. They hurl recriminations, offer confessions, plead guilty, voice regrets and, remarkably, affirm a mutual respect that transcends it all. Because you constantly sense the attraction between the two, the divisions have that much more poignancy and force.

X’s musical response to the immediacy and intimacy of this subject matter has been to discard the sweet twang and perky tone of last year’s “More Fun in the New World.” The quartet plants its feet and lets Billy Zoom’s slithering, churning guitar lead it through X’s familiar stripped-down, charged-up punkabilly.

But Michael Wagner has replaced Ray Manzarek as X’s producer, and he helps the group hone a sound with more ring and depth. He’s demoted D. J. Bonebrake’s mighty snare and introduced some shimmering folk-rock textures, imparting extra richness and resonance to the bittersweet moods without sacrificing power and roughness.

Doe’s ragged howl is full of rage and yearning, while Cervenka exchanges Patsy Cline for Patti Smith as main influence. Together, they really take off. Their harmony virtually soars above the monster rockabilly rumba on the chorus of “My Soul Cries Your Name,” and it elevates the Byrds-like “I’ll Stand Up for You,” an anthem of support that lifts them beyond the reach of the forces that are tearing them apart.