EP Review: Extended Paranoia

A lifetime ago, I found myself down a dodgy alley in the heart of Pōneke’s CBD, watching a bunch of 15-year-old upstarts tear the roof off Zeal’s underage rage stage. That band was Supergroove. Even then, they had a swagger, funk and force that felt impossible for their age – raw, wired, completely electrifying. I mention it because the same jolt hit me the moment I pressed play on Zafado’s Extended Paranoia. Suddenly I was back in that early-2000’s Wellington scene, when Supergroove, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Apollo and Roots Foundation made the city feel like it was running on rhythm, smoke and voltage. With Zafado, it feels like someone has struck the match again.

There’s something gloriously unruly about Zafado’s six-track-debut – a Pōneke-bred blast of alternative hip-hop, funk, reggae and jazz-rock built for sweaty lounges, student flats and small stages where the walls shake before the chorus lands. Emerging from the Massey University music scene, the five-piece – vocalist Adam McPhail, drummer Tyler Curtis, guitarist Duncan Petre, bassist Soli Fox and pianist Quentin Stark – made music live, sample-free, and wired through friendship, instinct and the crackling volatility of a band chasing its own strange frequency.

The name fits. Zafado comes from Peruvian Spanish – roughly “mad”, “loose”, or “high-energy” – and that wild streak runs through every corner of the EP. You can hear flashes of Sublime’s loose-limbed skank, Rage Against the Machine’s political bite, a glint of Steely Dan slickness, and the sharp Aotearoa hip-hop intelligence of Home Brew and Tom Scott’s Avantdale Bowling Club. But Zafado never sound like anyone’s tribute act. They mash funk, soul, rap, hip-hop, reggae and jazz-rock into something wired, sweaty and gloriously off-kilter – the kind of music that makes you pogo around the living room like a demented banana.

Extended Paranoia captures a band with chemistry to burn: elastic basslines, jagged guitar stabs, rolling keys, hard-swinging drums and McPhail’s voice cutting through it all with wit, urgency and uneasy charisma. Lyrically, it clocks the pressure points of modern life – media noise, toxic politics, addiction, faux fame, inner turmoil and dark memory.

Opener New Sound System kicks the door in with a restless take on consumerism and news-media overload, delivered with machine-head energy. The reggae-laced Sally sketches a darker story of exploitation and addiction under the glare of social-media hunger, its accusatory intensity giving the track its bite.

Squatter hits harder, turning personal demons into unwanted tenants taking up space in the house of the self. Then comes the loose freestyle interlude I Ain’t Leaving Yet, a brief but telling reminder of McPhail’s instinctive flow and spontaneous spark.

The EP’s live-wire centrepiece is President, a James-Brown-funk-heavy fan favourite that turns political absurdity into something sharp, funny and danceable. To me, it explains why Zafado built such a devoted student following through backyard gigs, house parties, open mics and Wellington shows, culminating in a headline fundraiser at Moon Bar in Newtown, where they performed tracks from the EP while raising funds for Palestinian relief efforts. The emotional gravity arrives with closer Ascendin, where McPhail sits with memory, reflection and the ache of looking back. It is deeply personal without becoming sentimental, giving the record a final lift that lingers long after the groove fades.

Recorded at Massey University Studios with Thomas Clark behind the desk, Extended Paranoia now carries a weight no debut should have to bear. Frontman and songwriter Adam McPhail – also known as Iaca Rojo – died in March 2026, turning what might have been a beginning into a final document of a band, a friendship and a voice. That knowledge changes how the EP lands, but it never turns the record into a solemn memorial. If anything, it makes it feel more alive: messy, funny, angry, soulful, politically wired and full of McPhail’s restless imagination. In a way this is a perfect tribute to him. And yet I really want this band to grow and expand.

For all its grief-shadowed context, Extended Paranoia still moves – sweating, joking, jabbing and grooving with one foot firmly on the stage. Zafado may have ended too soon, but this EP shows why they mattered: young musicians playing with nerve, chops and purpose, and a lyricist whose worldview stamps every bar. As farewell statements go, it is heartbreaking, urgent and defiantly alive. They deserve to build on this work and go real places, just like Supergroove did; the music is joyous, ironic and utterly satisfying, the kind of stuff that could one day feel like national anthems – and deserves to be blasting from pub jukeboxes everywhere.