Forget what anybody tells you about The Platform: Dilated Peoples’ first album really isn’t all that.

Repeated listens to The Platform show it to be sketchy, poorly-mixed and weirdly emotionless. At the time, it was revered for its B-Boy aesthetic, gritty production and punchy rhyme schemes, but listening back on it now is like meeting your first girlfriend at your high school reunion. Surely she wasn’t that plump when you kissed her on the train for the first time?

Fortunately, Dilated were just getting going. And on their second album Expansion Team, they came correct. The LA crew’s relations with Capitol Records may have been sour even then, but this is the best album that they’ve ever made.

Partly, this is due to the relentless polishing of the good bits from their first album: Ev’s flow is tighter, Rakaa’s mixed up his metaphors a little and DJ Babu’s cuts are world class. But Dilated have always been noted for taking hip-hop back to basics, and this album succeeds – and sounds fresh, even today — because it gets so many of the basic things right.

It has one of the best opening sequences of tracks in hip-hop history. ‘Live On Stage’, ‘Worst Come To Worst’, ‘Clockwork’, ‘Trade Money’ and ‘Heavy Rotation’ all come rolling along like a set of perfect seven-footers at Venice Beach – and don’t forget, you’ve got producers like Alchemist, Premo, Da Beatminerz and Ev himself riding these breakers.

By the time Dilated are trading blows with long-time partners Tha Liks on Heavy Rotation, or standing back while turntablist buddies The Beat Junkies try to outshine each other between sporadic couplets, you barely remember The Platform. This is pitch-perfect stuff, combining memorable boom-bap production with great rhymes — and the chemistry between the MCs is superb.

The rest of the album puts a couple of feet wrong – Black Thought sounds oddly anaemic on Heavy Hitters — but the momentum barely drops for a second. Expansion Team showcases a crew — hell, it showcases an entire coastline — at the top of their game. As such, it’s essential listening.

Words Rob Boffard