Although leader George Cartwright’s latest compositions boast passages of genuine beauty, like the extended piano/sax diminuendo in "Late December," this restrained outing may disappoint fans of Curlew’s usually adventurous music. The title track might pass for smooth jazz were it not for Davey Williams’s ripping fuzz-guitar solo and the occasional unexpected turns of Chris Parker’s piano. Maybe the piece is tongue-in-cheek; all the same, nondescript vamping and soft-turn melodies — even when they’re dark, like the theme of "ARM" — abound here. As for the pacing, it’s slow, slow, slow. Even when Cartwright’s sax starts digging in the dirt in "Sensible Shoes/Proper Fit," momentum doesn’t build, and though he tries to generate tension by making his horn tug hard against the reins of the drums, the tune just keeps shambling along. There’s the occasional graceful slide-guitar tone or keyboard excursion to brighten the picture and pick up the pace. But after 20 years of daring recordings, Curlew seem to have lost their energy and sense of inventive direction.