Robert Christgau gave ''Life Ain't That Long
an "A" grade in a review for his "Expert Witness" column. Frank Gutch, Jr. of No Depression'' also reviewed the album favorably, writing, "Sometimes you need only one song and sometimes it takes years but if an album is really good you will eventually know it. For Life Ain't That Long, it didn't even take a song. The first few measures of “A Stoopid Broken Heart”, I knew. By the end of the second song, I really knew and by the end of the third I was laughing, it was so damn good." Gutch also compared Krueger's music favorably to that of
Randy Newman. A similar comparison was made by Keith Harris, who wrote that "...[Krueger's] ability to inhabit characters (“The Gospel According to Carl” is worthy of a kinder Randy Newman) is equaled by his insight into his own romantic haplessness". In describing the song "Kenny’s (It’s Always Christmas in This Bar)", the opening track from
NowTHEN,
Greil Marcus wrote, "I can’t remember the last time I said yes to a song out loud in its first three seconds. In the instant when I realized that Krueger...was something different, I also felt as if I’d been listening to this song half my life. Krueger catches the feel, the cadence, of ordinary talk as he jumps the waves in the sound." Robert Christgau also reviewed
NowTHEN favorably, giving it an A grade, concluding, "...here be a literary songwriter of the first rank whose pipes benefited from his long break and who's reeled in enough fine musicians to execute his ambitious arrangements. Vanity projects seldom come prouder." ==Discography==