3 + 3

The title is a headcount — three older Isleys plus three younger players, and the arithmetic pays off the instant Ernie Isley's fuzz-and-wah guitar tears through "That Lady, Pts. 1 & 2."

That solo is the sound of a family act deciding it could be a self-contained band, no longer renting other people's grooves. The proof is in the covers scattered across the record — a James Taylor tune in "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight," a Seals & Crofts hit in "Summer Breeze" — songs the Isleys strip to velvet and reassemble with a rhythm section that never rushes and a Ronald Isley vocal that treats every line like a slow reveal. Where the originals drift, these versions smolder, the guitar coiling underneath instead of politely accompanying. By the closing minor-key ache of "The Highways of My Life," the band has made the borrowed material sound like it was theirs all along.