Taco Bell have continued their trend of soundtracking ads with rock and pop bangers, their latest being a joint with fast-rising trio Meet Me @ The Altar.
The new spot, plugging Taco Bell’s $2 grilled chicken burritos, started airing earlier this week. It’s soundtracked by ‘Say It (To My Face)’, the single Meet Me @ The Altar dropped back in September.
Fittingly given the band’s nostalgic pop-punk sound, the spot leans into the gaudy and intense aesthetic of ads from the mid-to-late ‘90s. It shows two men flying drones by a desert cliffside, before one suggests ordering Taco Bell from the fast food giant’s app. ‘Say It’ kicks in as we’re shown whirling shots of the burritos being made, then delivered to the men by someone riding a dirt bike.
We then get uncomfortably close with the food-fiending drone-flyers, with vertiginous, ultra-zoomed-in shots of them taking bites underscored by Edith Victoria singing passionately: “You’re never ever gonna say it to my face (say it to my face)!”
Have a look at the ad for yourself below:
The band themselves seem just as stunned as we are by their inclusion in the ad, tweeting it out with the all-caps appeal for their fans to “LIVE MAS AND ROCK ON”, and then going lowercase to express some expected bewilderment:
MM@TA x @TACOBELL // Our first TV commercial placement. Thank you so much @tacobell !! LIVE MAS & ROCK ON 🤘🏾 🔥 🔥 🔥 pic.twitter.com/yc0FLD4cF2
— Meet Me @ The Altar 💒 (@MMATAband) December 25, 2022
like wtf??? 💀💀💀 howd that happen
— Meet Me @ The Altar 💒 (@MMATAband) December 26, 2022
Back in October, Taco Bell released an ad for nacho fries soundtracked by Turnstile‘s 2021 single ‘Holiday’. Also this year, the company shared a TikTok production called Mexican Pizza: The Musical, starring Doja Cat and Dolly Parton. And last August, Lil Nas X was given the honorary title of Taco Bell’s chief impact officer.
Meanwhile, Meet Me @ The Altar are gearing up to release their debut album – dedicated to Pink, Avril Lavigne and Demi Lovato – sometime in the new year. They’d previously said the record would arrive in 2022, but with three days left on the calendar, that doesn’t seem entirely plausible. Nevertheless, it’ll mark the follow-up to last year’s ‘Model Citizen’ EP, which earned a four-star review from NME.