Singer-songwriter-guitarist Collin Herring’s done it again. He’s recorded a new album of insightful originals, OCHO (Nov. 17, 2009), that blur the lines between rock, folk-rock and country (like his previous genre-bending three).

The sure foundation of Herring’s vocals, layered with a mix of electric guitars and plaintive steel, love-gone-wrong lyrics, and the special twists in the songs; they all fit. OCHO is another attention-grabbing disc from the Texan, tracked at Britton Beisenherz’s Ramble Creek Studio in Austin and produced by Will Johnson (Centro-matic). Additional recording was done with Stuart Sikes at Elmwood Studio in Dallas, with mixdown by Beisenherz at Ramble Creek.

Joining Herring were Johnson (harmony vocals, guitar), Monahans members Roberto Sanchez (percussion) and Beisenherz (bass), Keith Hanna (bass) — and his father, Ben Roi Herring, who has contributed to all four of his son’s records on pedal steel, keyboards and harmony vocals. A mini-documentary by Todd Wiseman of the recording of OCHO is available at http://vimeo.com/6838610

Born and raised in Fort Worth, Collin Herring’s Reveille was his piano restorer-dad’s Neil Young albums, and even today he cites as musical influences everything from Mr. Young to music-making by his father and his father’s friends to coffee. “Music has always been something that I understood,” he says. He chose the guitar as the easiest way to get there.

In 2002, he released a stunning debut album, AVOIDING THE CIRCUS, and was touted as “the next big thing” by Dallas Observer. Described by HARP magazine as “one hell of a debut,” he and it won Fort Worth Weekly Music Awards 2003’s Album of the Year, Best Country Album and Songwriter of the Year.

Herring’s follow-up, THE OTHER SIDE OF KINDNESS, which was released during Austin’s South By Southwest Music Festival in 2005, debuted at #1 on Miles of Music’s sales charts, won Album of the Year honors in 2005 and garnered national praise from publications such as Paste magazine, HARP and No Depression and mention of his writing and vocal styles in the same sentence with the likes of Alejandro Escovedo, Freedy Johnston, Bottle Rockets, Ryan Adams, Jay Farrar and Josh Rouse.

A third record, PAST LIFE CRASHING, was recorded over a two-year period and released in 2008, and represents Herring’s ongoing creation of music that defies simple categorization.