Classifying 25-year-old songwriter Robert Ellis as simply an alt-country or Americana artist is a gross understatement, one that subtly denies the hidden pop, jazz and rock intricacies of his maturely developed sound. Although it is the genre he is most familiar with, his latest album “The Lights From the Chemical Plant,” released in February, is just as rooted in the traditional Americana sound as it is free jazz and classic pop.

“To me, Americana is so vague,” he said. “It’s all about people’s frame of reference. If you don’t have a frame of reference, you’re just going to hear my voice, and I sound like I’m from Texas. I want to explore my music in any way I can. I want to be challenged by music.”

There is no mistaking Ellis’ country roots. Growing up in Lake Jackson, Texas, he was raised on classic country music. His previous album, 2011’s “Photographs,” was heavily rooted in the traditional country sound, a style Ellis deliberately wanted to separate himself from on his new record. The record, his third, is easily his most mature to date, ranging from the jazz-influenced “Bottle of Wine” to altcountry ballads like “Only Lies.” The most stylistically traditional country song on the album, “Sing Along,” which features guest vocals from noted Americana singer Jim Lauderdale, is a lyrically abrasive track about the evils of indoctrinating children into religion, a juxtaposition that Ellis wanted to convey, he said.

“People need familiarity,” he said. “They want to be able to say, ‘Oh I recognize this, I like this.’ Unfortunately, when country and Americana music comes into the equation, people don’t really let you out of that. I grew up with the Internet, so it’s a little weird for me to be like, ‘this is the style that we do’ in an age where we have access to anything.”

Thematically, the album’s title and track is evocative of Ellis’ childhood growing up in Lake Jackson, a small industrial town dominated by the chemical plant, which became a central feature of the album.

“Growing up I was really captivated by the symbol, the seemingly ugly industrial image which I always found beautiful as a kid,” he said. “My parents and grandparents worked for the chemical company. It was the only reason why anyone ever settled in that place. There was always this love-hate relationship with the chemical company, and that was a symbol I really wanted to convey.”

Now based in Nashville, the selfproclaimed country music mecca, Ellis understands how listeners might initially want to construe and pigeonhole his music and seems to do almost everything in his power to challenge those expectations. When I asked Ellis about his musical influences, he began to open up, listing artists as unexpected as free jazz guitarist Derek Bailey to songwriters like Paul Simon and Randy Newman and freak folk singer Joanna Newsome. His cover of Simon’s “Still Crazy After All These Years,” is a highlight of the album, and Ellis explains that its inclusion was contextual.

“He’s an artist who never had to rely on genre classification,” he said. “After ‘Photographs’ being such a country driven record, I wanted to contextualize it for people. If I had put a Willie Nelson song on this record, people might be responding to it differently. I hope to make these kinds of associations where people think, ‘Oh, Paul Simon,’ instead of George Jones.”

Robert Ellis will perform at the Metro April 23 for Petty Fest.