Sammamish-bred singer-songwriter Liv Victorino’s Sheer Force of Will (2021) was an auspicious debut. With its sinuously fingerpicked acoustic guitar and an emotive, double-tracked singing style evocative of Elliott Smith, the four-song EP caught the ear of Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold; it was introduced to many a Seattle-area listener with some prominent spins on KEXP. Rather than continue in the tradition of the sound for which she garnered some local notoriety, though, Victorino is positioning her first new single in more than two years, the considerably more rock-oriented “Neighborhood,” as something of a reintroduction that’s been previewed recently at notable local festivals like the Capitol Hill Block Party and Belltown Bloom. 

“Over the last two years, I’ve transitioned from being essentially, like, a folk musician with acoustic guitar and my voice — and that’s it — into a full-scale rock band with a four-piece setup,” Victorino, calling from her grandmother’s house in Wallingford, told 425 over the phone recently. “I think I kind of made my name in Seattle with the folk music and some of the singer-songwriter stuff, and now I’m translating that into a rock-band context, which kind of represents a ‘redebut’ to me.” 

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