“Believe,” out Valentine’s Day 2026, marks a real departure for the Frank James Band, trading their usual heavier rock sound for something gentler. The song has an unusually long history behind it: Frank James spent twenty years writing it, drawing on personal experiences from a period living overseas, before finally recording it at Marc Muir’s Music Manor in Cornwall, Ontario, with Muir producing. Getting the track’s feel right took a week and a half of trial and error in the studio, and the song will appear on the band’s upcoming album, Sweat, Strings & Scars.
It sounds like the 70s with its chord progression and harmonic content, but the drums give it a distinctly modern sound that makes it sound fresh and not just another 70s-style song. But really, what makes the song shine isn’t the novelty of the sound; it’s the vocal delivery, the heartfelt lyrics, and the romantic intention that is clear behind every note. There is so much hope and faith in the power of love itself present here in the song, in every element, from the energetic drums to the sustained lead guitar sound that stars in the instrumental interlude, to the vocals.
That’s really the whole story of “Believe.” A song that took two decades to finish could easily feel over-labored by the time it’s finally recorded, but there’s nothing overworked about the result. Instead, it plays like a song that simply needed the right amount of time and the right collaborator to become exactly what it was always meant to be, and that patience comes through in how unforced the final version sounds.
For a band stepping outside their usual sound, “Believe” is a confident first move into new territory, less concerned with reinventing anything than with getting one very specific, long-held feeling exactly right.
