Krumm then started writing new music of a very different style, influenced by such artists as Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Tom Waits, and the Replacements, and Uncle Tupelo.
[2] PopMatters' Eden Miller gave the Great Crusades' second album, Damaged Goods, a favorable review, writing that "While The Great Crusades aren't doing anything new musically, with the basic rock line-up complimented every now and then with some ska-inspired horns, they don't need to be.
"[3] Greil Marcus wrote that on the band's third album, Never Go Home, the Great Crusades "...carry themselves like Midwestern gangsters: with the determined, bitter nihilism of Tom Hanks in Road to Perdition, but also the gleeful nihilism of Billy Zane in This World, Then the Fireworks.
The review described the album as an improvement relative to its predecessor, 2002's Never Go Home, which it called "disappointing".
It also described the music on Welcome to the Hiawatha Inn as "bulging roadhouse rock, with the added croak of Krumm’s phlegmy Tom Waits-isms.