SIMIEN: SWAMPY

Listening to an evening of zydeco music leaves the listener with two choices: drinkin’ ‘n’ dancin’ and death. So it was when Terrance Simien & the Mallet Playboys made its local debut Friday night at the Music Machine.

With barefoot accordionist Simien providing sweet tenor vocals and piercing patois shouts, the young black quintet powered though a traditional repertoire of waltzes, two-steps, blues, country/soul ballads and more than a few moments of weirdly, wildly syncopated 110% pure voodoo.

Basically, mon cher, they’re a semi-flashy (frosty moves from the rub-board player), ten-fisted, hard- woikin’, lil’ bar band, albeit one authentic enough to transform any club into a small-time dance hall way out in the swamps of south Louisiana whence they wail. Bare or otherwise, that’s no mean feat.