untitled delve deeper into their own grunge, alt-rock formula on “Say It Again”

Lightning in a bottle is common in the music industry; even more so with the ever-present potential of the viral song, chorus, or reel. It can feel undeserved, sometimes it’s pleasantly surprising. Always, though, it’s exciting because it’s so thoroughly unpredictable.

untitled can attest to that. Their debut single “Restless” became the fastest streaming rock song on the planet, generating over forty million streams and two billion views on TikTok upon its release towards the end of 2025.

So, what does an already viral band do with all eyes on them? “As an artist, you [always] want to make a song that’s catchy, something that you can listen to a million times,” shares guitarist James Hladek. “But seeing what TikTok can do, it opens up a different world of thinking about how you make a song. There are certain ways to make it. There’s certain vibes on videos that you can meet and relate to musically that you might not think about when you’re making a song.”

It’s a refreshingly candid approach to how artists grapple with a beast like social media, which is rarely ever possible to control. The name of the game for untitled isn’t bending to TikTok’s whims, which are obscure and ever-changing – so much as it is being smart about its value without letting it actually change the music they want to make.

As it is, their new single “Say It Again” knows exactly what it wants to be. Just like its predecessor, it’s a rock song from start to finish. “I think we were aiming for a nostalgic, nineties sound,” says frontman Danny Meza. “There are lyrics that gesture towards what’s going on around the world today. But I feel like we really were aiming for a nineties song... I think it sounded pretty great.”

The nineties influences are inescapable, both Danny and James cite the grunge rock of Nirvana and Weezer as an influence. “All four of us grew up listening to that music, and you draw inspiration for the things you hear,” untitled admit. In “Say It Again” that is thoroughly audible: a simple, picked, almost wary sounding guitar line, that tugs in a pulsing drumline, then a bass, on its journey to a chorus that is half-sung, half-shouted. The last minute is reserved for a knotty, warped instrumental before we return to the same guitar line of before. It’s well-crafted rock, and it does sound good; the guitar riff worms into your brain with ease, and each band member works well off the other. There’s a clear synchronicity to the way they play that polishes an already great track.

Excitingly, it is audibly angry without being directionless and, just as Hlazek wants it to, it meets the listener where they are. It’s a great and rare thing in pop for an artist to be able to do this without diluting their own writing. It’s a testament to how untitled make music: “I think it’s about not the songs but the way we’re making them,” says Hladek. “We make the songs in garages. We made the first song in a garage, this song in a garage… music is open. There’s no stopping you from just getting in your garage and making something.”

Even as they hone their craft, there’s a knowledge that untitled won’t lose their defining spark: the playfulness that comes from sitting in with your friends and messing around until something starts to sound really good.