What could possibly be sung in the face of something as unthinkable as mass extinction? How about a lullaby:

Go to sleep you little babies

you’re gonna have a lot of difficult times.

If you don’t treat me like a lady

won’t be the apple of my eye…

That’s the chorus of “300 MYR,” the opening track on Jordan Moser’s new album, Peril. It’s a song the mother goddess might sing to her dying species… and a glimpse of the tender, dark comedy that Moser brings to his subject. No easy task considering that Peril is, above all, an album about ecological catastrophe.

Over the course of these 10 songs, we hear Moser moving through something like the stages of grief — weary lament, laser-sighted outrage, even playful acceptance—as he processes the scale of the climate crisis. Because Jordan Moser is the type of songwriter who can’t help but tell the truth. And the truth is, we’re in trouble.

These are topical songs that hold their own alongside the best of Seeger, Guthrie, and early Dylan. The songs themselves never stray from the human story. Because in the end, this album is really for us: the people who have to… you know… survive this mess. And toward us, Moser’s songs are immensely compassionate. Maybe the world has ended before, but this is our first time. Or as Moser notices on “Day Laborer”:

All the pain you got second hand feels brand new.

So why can’t music have something to say? Why shouldn’t a songwriter of Jordan Moser’s caliber confront the realities of our fragile life on this planet?

The songs of Peril greet us with tenderness. They give form to our outrage. They ask us to face the future with courage and imagination. What can we do? How can we continue to live amid such destruction? Jordan Moser has an idea:

Do some justice to those tears.

Get your ass back to the wild.

-Alex Dupree