Aside from the usual local pride, I've never had much to boast about as a lover of both music and the city of Baltimore. The city has its share of history, sure, but there's been a relatively low number of phenomena to emerge from the fair burg in recent memory. And then there was Lake Trout. At a show about a year ago, Lake Trout sewed my jaw to the floor for a few fleeting moments and left open a permanent invitation to their frequent area appearances.

After picking up their passable second studio album, 1998's Volume for the Rest of It, and catching a few more astounding sets, a clear incongruity became apparent. While the live shows are seamless marriages of improvisation and composition, this album sported a handful of gems amongst a glut of aimless in-studio noodling that barely hinted at the band's well-crafted chemistry. A live album became an obvious inevitability and the smartest subsequent move they could make. And so, here is Alone at Last to attempt to capture the magic of their widely varying performances in one night on one disc.

Already learning to play on their strengths, Alone at Last wisely avoids focusing on Lake Trout's frontman-by-default, Woody Ranere. Ranere's obviously still getting on his feet as a singer and lyricist, but his willingness to blend his spare guitar in with the ensemble makes his missteps more forgivable. His only turn on the mic-- the syncopated groove of "I'll Be"-- appears early in the album after a dark, loose introductory jam, making way for a headlong passage through Lake Trout's myriad textures.

The band's true star, drummer Michael Lowry, doesn't warm up into his trademark machine-gun breakbeats until a rendition of one of their masterful token instrumentals, "Little Things in Different Places." Over guitarist Ed Harris' irresistibly head-bobbing looping lick, Lowry exhibits his admirable stamina without hogging the spotlight or drying up the music's flow with show- offy chops. He's one of the first and only live drummers to perfect the skittering, hyper programmed beats of jungle with nothing but two sticks and a large drumkit, which sports no less than three snare drums. The long-heralded connection between jazz and drum-n-bass can be realized only through such stunning musicianship and daring.

Even with two guitarists in the band, the instrument takes a distant backseat to the groove held by the rest. Ranere and Harris trade back and forth on trebly, jazzy patterns and leave more room for bassist James Griffith's simple but commanding low-end riffs. Filling out the sound is consummate jack-of-all-trades Matt Pierce, who from his position stage left, trades off on saxophones, flute, keyboard, and even punching in big bruising beats to augment the busy-body hi-hat attack in progress. And when Lowry gradually builds in intensity only to stop on a dime for the flailing sax riff that opens "Kono," the inclusion of horns in the mix is suddenly understood.

The format of Lake Trout's live performances has brought them a following from the jam-band crowd. Even the very existence of a live album after only two studio efforts, and a tracklisting packed with ">>"'s denoting improv tangents, are hallmarks of such an act. But I wouldn't expect to see many neo-hippies warming up to the surreal moments where Griffith's immense fuzz-bass becomes the only thing tethering Mid-Eastern sax wailing and a rapid fire backbeat to a recognizable jam template.

Whereas attaching a DJ to a band's lineup has practically become a requirement for mainstream rap/metal bands, Lake Trout utilize DJ Who as just another singular texture piling up into a nearly overbearing whole. Who leaves the beats to Lowry and contributes spare atmospherics, albeit with an occasional indulgence in techno's most tiresome cliche, film noir dialogue. That said, I once witnessed them really rip it up on a sample from The Usual Suspects. On "What Boy?," DJ Who scratches sassy samples that establish the importance hip-hop has on the band's real-time sonic pastiche.

Alone at Last's one real inconsistency with Lake Trout's live show is the editing done for time constraints. The night documented here is probably as worthy as any, but the best performance I've seen them give to date was just a few weeks previous, and lasted a blistering two hours, plus encore. A two-disc set is probably out of the question for such a young and relatively unknown band, but one can't help but miss some of the trimmed fat that very well may have been as much as an hour in addition to the 70 minutes represented here. The album's closer, "Throw Me the Whip," fades out just as it starts to get interesting and the bassline locks itself in your short-term memory. But then again, it's often said that the definition of a live act is one that leaves you wanting more, and Lake Trout easily succeed in that respect.

-Al Shipley