McCrudden's music grew out of his work as a filmmaker. Story-songs with echoes of the American Desert and Stockholm's endless nights. With hints of prettiness, growling, twang, a heart with a horn section. His honesty disarms you, it confesses and sighs. At first blush, his sound is patently Americana: the conventions of cowboy guitar strums, ballad, radio lullabies. What appears sooner than later, though is a man with a flashlight, showing us his particular corner of the world. An empty room, a man, a guitar. Curtains that billow as he does. He croons about his behavioral disorders, a werewolf hiding from the moon. He relives the anger, the alcohol, the fights, retelling the arguments and the apologies for the arguments, establishing regret and forgiveness as the operatives for relationships as well as song. It's troubadour storytelling that tips its hat to the icons: Dylan, Waits, Cash, only to lay these spectres to rest and reveal himself unadorned, his own face, his own voice, his own second-hand guitar. The songs are hooky and approachable. This Ian McCrudden finds reason to call out to you like a ventriloquist or a dancing monkey on an otherwise busy and anonymous boulevard. He's gonna tell you about his dead horse, of course, and his girlfriend, and what happened in Oklahoma, see. And then he's got you, and you can't help but listen.