Since forming in the mid-’90s, Baltimore-based quintet Lake Trout has released four studio albums that, for better or worse, tell a woefully incomplete story of the band’s musical evolution. Each release marks a stage in its development, from a party band with moments of jazzy improvisation, to long groove-driven instrumental tangents, and then most recently to brooding alt-rock with a greater emphasis on songwriting. But those recordings are ultimately snapshots of a band that’s always done its most inspired work onstage, where it won a dedicated fanbase that heavily bootlegged its live recordings.

Lake Trout calls Live, which it recently released through the free music website The Biggest Label Ever, its “first official live album,” but that’s not entirely true. In 2000, the band released a live collaboration with DJ Who, Alone At Last, which is now out of print, and an EP of live recordings titled There Are No Words was briefly available in 2006. Those releases emphasized the exploratory instrumental work that dominated their shows at some points in the band’s history, but Live captures Lake Trout as it was when it last played out frequently in 2006, focusing on the vocal material from its last two studio albums, with occasional moments of improv.

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Only two tracks on Live are among the countless previously unreleased instrumental songs that have peppered the band’s shows for years and one of them, “New Thing,” is by far the highlight of the album, with driving guitar riffs and and a pulsing soft/loud structure. Of course, the track isn’t entirely instrumental, given the distorted screams of keyboard/flute player Matt Pierce that punctuate the song’s climaxes.

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In concert, Lake Trout has always shown a fondness for covers, ranging from the Ramones to Aphex Twin and the Rolling Stones. And Live features the first official release of a longtime staple, “Wave of Mutilation” by the Pixies (done in the slower ‘U.K. surf’ b-side arrangement, rather than the original album version). While much of the disc ends up sounding a little too much like the band’s last two studio albums, with five tracks each from 2002’s Another One Lost and 2005’s Not Them, You, it’s moments like “Wave of Mutilation” and “New Thing” that make Live an essential Lake Trout release, even if it ultimately falls short of its potential.