THE EVERLASTING

The Everlasting is the twenty-second Loudness album, released by Tokuma Japan Communications on 27 May 2009. It was completed using drum tracks Munetaka Higuchi had recorded before his death the previous November, with Masayuki Suzuki, his successor, playing on some of the songs. It is therefore the last album to which all four original members contributed. The Japanese subtitle, Konsō Kuon, speaks of the soul and of what endures, and describes the record accurately. This is not a memorial album set apart from the band's working life; it is the album made so that the band could continue — and it carries both meanings at once. It reached No. 50 on the Billboard Japan album sales chart.