Kannon is a collective of thoughtful, progressive musicians crafting a new sonic texture, melding the core of improvised jazz fusion within a post-rock framework.

This blend of musical form is exhibited with crystal clarity on the Nashville-based group’s latest album, …in a sea of fire.

The album, reflecting its experimental sound, relies on the past to criticize the present. Released in February, the self-published project takes listeners deep into a forest of unconventional sound centered on a single theme: the unending cycle of destruction and creation.

A journey as exciting as it is unpredictable, the instrumental adventure of destruction and rebirth is portrayed through shifting rhythms and timbres, offering a glimpse of this group’s vast and varied sonic palette.

The recording offers sonic landscapes that draw the listener toward images of a rainy dystopian metropolis, shrouded in the darkness and mystery of the night, with “The Trial of Joseph K.”

The piece offers a modern soundtrack to the critique of bureaucracy and modern life penned in Franz Kafka’s The Trial.

The composition reminds us just how close modern life may be to the world that Kafka originally drafted his iconic tale more than a century earlier.

The sound and theater of the American West is hinted at with “They’ve All Gone Off to Kansas.”

The piece inspires images of westward expansion and the 19th-century belief of manifest destiny — the ideology that helped displace the native inhabitants of the Americas.

“Windigo” carries the listener deep into a thick old-growth forest of psychedelia and folklore, as “Nakba” reminds listeners of the horrors of war, oppression and ethnic cleansing.

“Lonely Woman,” the recording’s final piece, stands as a 15-minute contemporary cinematic soundscape that evokes images of the seductive and dangerous night that simultaneously offers a nod to the celebrated jazz composer and saxophonist Ornette Coleman.

This far-reaching sound is achieved through a rather minimalist ensemble: Gabe Crouch’s guitar, John Judkins’ slide guitar, Josh Minyard’s drums, Dillon Smith’s bass and Chris Watts’ saxophone.

Despite the simple instrumentation, the group is able to create moments of dramatic intensity and complexity as witnessed in the final moments of “Lonely Woman.”

The group follows in the post-rock tradition of relying on extreme shifts in dynamics to build tension and then offer emotional release, creating a musical landscape of quiet, contemplative valleys and powerful and dramatic mountains.

The album marks the group’s second multi-song release, following 2003’s self-titled debut.

Each of the five compositions that comprise …in a sea of fire offers a glimpse of the group’s boundless compositional capacity, springing between traditions and textures without hesitation.

Relying on a vast range of influences and voices of the past for inspiration, Kannon has penned a work that takes direct aim at the world as it is today.

Each composition points to our greatest faults and reminds us that amid these hardships, this destruction, much is lost forever, but amid that devastation, there is an opportunity to start anew.