B-Side Guys

Between Durham’s brick mills and leafy neighborhoods, Ben Newgard has crafted a poisoned dart aimed at middle-class meditation apps and self-help shortcuts. “Mind Eraser” wraps its barbs in deceptively pleasant indie pop arrangements, but its target practice is precise and unflinching.

The song’s opening salvo—”mind eraser/silent concrete/vacant towers/plastic flowers”—builds its world through sharp fragments, each image more artificial than the last. Newgard’s eye for detail turns increasingly caustic as he dissects the commodification of wellness, painting a landscape where “statisticians doctor the numbers” and self-help promises ring hollow against the backdrop of “creature comforts.”

At the 2:10 mark, the song’s most memorable section kicks in with an arresting shift. This moment serves as the fulcrum point where Newgard’s critique turns inward, the narrator caught “suffocating in the self-help section to exorcise my greed.” It’s a confessional wrapped in condemnation, neither side emerging unscathed.

The production maintains a careful distance from its subject matter, much like the song’s narrator watching mockingbirds through windows while refreshing drinks and turning on TV shows. Each element sits in its own space, clean but never sterile, matching the manicured lawns and careful facades the lyrics dissect.

Newgard’s choice to end on “this little life of luxury” lands like a whispered threat. The final image of mockingbirds picking apart a millipede serves as nature’s mirror to the song’s systematic dismantling of comfortable illusions. It’s a quietly violent image tucked into the corner of an otherwise orderly scene.

The verses flow with the cadence of someone talking themselves into believing a comfortable lie. When the chorus admits “they’re just creature comforts/simple creature comforts,” the repetition itself becomes a kind of mind eraser, a mantra designed to sand down life’s sharper edges.

From the urban renewal of Durham to the broader American landscape, “Mind Eraser” captures the peculiar emptiness of spaces designed for maximum comfort and minimum disruption. The song’s narrator moves through this world like a ghost, simultaneously participant and observer, trapped in the very systems they critique.

The song’s power lies in its refusal to offer easy escape routes. When the chorus tells us to “don’t overthink it,” it’s both invitation and warning—a reminder that comfort often comes at the cost of consciousness. Newgard has crafted something rare here: a critique of modern numbness that never feels numb itself.

The repeated promises that “a month or two and you’ll feel better, man” land with the hollow certainty of a subscription service guarantee. It’s the sound of someone trying to buy their way to peace of mind, only to find themselves lost in an endless scroll of solutions that create their own problems.