Hugely influential
For me at least. I got this comp shortly after it came out, and at the time was not familiar with most of these artists. I'd been a fan of country-rock and hard country since the early '70s, but was skeptical about the big alt.country splash that Uncle Tupelo and its successors were making at the time. "Hell-Bent," however, set my musical agenda for the next several years. I wound up devouring nearly everything most of these artists subsequently recorded, and I'm still buying their work, all these years later. Old 97s, Richard Buckner, Bottle Rockets, Volebeats (still among my favorite "nobody's ever heard of them" bands), Robbie Fulks, and the great Starkweathers (Mike Ireland's band). Looking at the artist lineup, it's easy to forget that at the time this was recorded, the great majority of these artists still had their best work ahead of them. Highly recommended both for the music and as an artifact of the alt.country revolution (OK, skirmish) that was percolating at the time.
