On "Keep Your Faith, Darling," the opening track on Stewart Francke's brilliant fifth album, the singer-songwriter sets the musical and thematic tone for the 10 songs to follow.  Cradled in vocal harmony, riding a delectable melody, Francke recalls the mantra his wife whispered to him as he lay in the hospital last year recovering from leukemia: "Keep Your Faith, Darling/Everything's gonna be all right tonight." Swimming In Mercury is easily Francke's best effort to date, the most potent expression of his longtime faith in hope and the human spirit.  The album conveys the humility, triumph and enlightenment that accompanied his cancer battle, but is imbued with a poetic grace that keeps it from reading like just another mushy tale about dignity and hardship. Taking its sonic cues from 1998’s SunflowerSoulSerenade at times-with its spiritual overtones and adept pop grooming-it comes off like some great lost George Harrison LP from 1971. Elsewhere-on songs like "Fathers and Sons" and "The Branch Will Not Break” - Francke recalls the plaintive earthiness of his earlier work. Keeping the faith, indeed. -Brian McCollum- Detroit Free Press pop music critic.