Silverchair's much-maligned debut CD, Frogstomp, was a lot more listenable than the band's detractors would like to admit: Sure, the Australian teens were ripping off Nirvana, Alice In Chains and every other self-loathing grunge act in the universe, but Frogstomp was slick and competent at what it was trying to do. It's hard to be so generous with Freak Show, the band's horrifically derivative follow-up. You want to hear the closest thing to copyright infringement that doesn't involve outright sampling? Listen to the Nirvana covers "Freak" and "Lie To Me." Even if you can suspend disbelief long enough to convince yourself that singer and Kurt Cobain lookalike Daniel Johns actually feels the tortured alienation he expresses on tracks like "Abuse Me," "Slave" and "Learn To Hate," there isn't one fraction of one second here that you haven't heard before. (And all the busy studio wankery, like the sitar and tabla on "Petrol & Chlorine," doesn't change that.) On Frogstomp, there was at least a youthful exuberance that made the album's derivativeness forgivable. Two years later, Silverchair hasn't learned anything new, and the results are barely listenable. If grunge is dead, and it probably is, Freak Show should make an autopsy unnecessary.