For every heavy metal success story that went from playing seedy L.A. clubs directly to the big time -- Moetley Cruee, Ratt, Guns N' Roses, etc. -- there were 50 or more bands that never made it out of the club circuit. Bound for Hell: On the Sunset Strip collects great songs from 21 such lesser-known players in the L.A. metal scene of the early '80s, a time when debaucherous hard rock and pop-friendly metal were dominating the airwaves and the charts, while legions of hard-working headbangers were toiling in obscurity. Listening to Bound for Hell, it's hard to say why some of these groups remained footnotes while their peers became superstars. Opening track "Going to the City" by Stormer is an anthem for weekend warriors with all the chops, hooks, and high-powered attitude of any hair metal act that went platinum. Bitch's "Damnation Alley" is every bit as sinister and severe as Shout at the Devil, and Black 'N Blue's catchy and ridiculous "Give Em the Old 1, 2, 3" merges AC/DC-inspired rocking with the neon glam trapping specific to L.A.'s '80s metal underground. The majority of the compilation is made up of grittier, less pop-oriented material. Hellion's "Up from the Depths" offers a dramatic, intricately composed take on hair metal that leans towards Dio-period Black Sabbath, and Leather Angel's shoddily recorded "We Came to Kill" has a surreal unfinished quality to it that makes it all the more captivating. Bound for Hell highlights a specific sector of fledgling metal bands that could have become stars if they had the right producers, bigger budgets, press exposure, or corporate backing. Ultimately, the absence of those resources is what makes the sounds here so interesting. There's no shortage of '80s metal groups who had major-label money behind them and ended up sounding like carbon copies of one another. The demo-quality recordings, strange compositional choices (see the bizarre and completely unnecessary shuffling riffage that appears at random throughout L.A. Rocks' pro-drug ode "Cocaine"), and powerhouse performances are all evidence of hungry young bands doing everything on their own. While not always pretty or suitable for the masses, the results gathered on Bound for Hell are far more noteworthy than the sea of sound-alikes that broke out commercially in the era when metal reigned. ~ Fred Thomas