C26 is here and Syrena are taking it on the chin

Back in the day there was something called C86.

What started life as a simple cassette distributed by the NME, showcasing a collection of new bands, soon transcended its prosaic beginnings. C86 became a scene. Then a sound. Eventually, an attitude.

Jangling guitars. Fuzzed vocals. Cheap records. Cheery pop hooks disguising bruised emotions. Fey young men in paisley shirts comparing obscure sixties beat singles and discovering, somewhat unexpectedly, that they were now the cool kids.

It was DIY music that was decidedly uncommercial until, suddenly, it became the new commercial. In student discos, at least. As The Smiths imploded, a hundred bright young pop stars seemed to burst from beneath their enormous shadow.

Three and a half minutes. Guitars. Melody. Heartbreak.

It never gets old.

Fast forward forty years and C86 feels like a transmission from another civilisation. Of course it does. Forty years is a long time.

But something is stirring.

Across the country, guitars are chiming again. Fuzz is creeping back around the edges. Melodies are getting brighter. Small bands are making small records that somehow sound enormous. Whether its purveyors consciously recognise the lineage or not, things are beginning to coalesce before emerging, blinking uncertainly, into the modern dystopia.

Jangle pop is back.

Syrena are all of this, quite possibly without realising it.

Hailing from Fife, they seem to have absorbed that peculiar gift for bittersweet guitar pop that has flowed through Scottish music for decades. Maybe it’s something in the water. From Postcard Records, through Teenage Fanclub, BMX Bandits and everything that happened around and between them, Scotland has always understood that guitars sound better when there’s a beautiful melody fighting its way through the noise.

Take It On The Chin is another step forward.

Fuzzed-up guitars? Present.

Chiming melodies? Absolutely.

Bouncing beat? Naturally.

A vocal delivered in an actual local accent rather than Mid-Atlantic Indie Voice #7? Thankfully yes.

And underneath it all, emotional knockbacks and the looming prospect of unrequited love.

These are the raw materials from which great pop records have always been constructed.

It’s as though The Soup Dragons sailed past sometime in the mid-1980s and quietly left a present on the doorstep with strict instructions not to open it until 2026.

The day has finally arrived.

More importantly, Syrena sound like a band in the thrilling throes of becoming something. They’re channelling those old C86 vibrations, consciously or otherwise, then contaminating them with Britpop swagger, baggy rhythms and the considerably less polite energy of another generation.

Something familiar emerges.

Something different too.

More interesting. More lively. More fun. This isn’t constrained by the influences. It’s freed by them.

Maybe scenes don’t begin with manifestos. Maybe nobody announces them at all. Perhaps you just start noticing the same ideas appearing in different places until somebody eventually gives the whole thing a name.

Forty years ago they called it C86.

This is the sound of young Scotland.

C26 is here.

Syrena can currently be found playing around the highlands and lowlands of Scotland, with plans to expand their reach south of the border and beyond in 2027. Keep your eyes peeled.