Balls has received a lot of well-deserved critical love. Elizabeth Cook sounds like a classic country singer rather than a Sheryl Crow or Shania Twain-wannabe, and the title cut—“Sometimes It Takes Balls to be a Woman”—has the same sort of spunk that Loretta Lynn’s “Fist City” embodied years ago. That title and the beautiful, countrified treatment of the Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning” give rock ’n’ roll fans reasons to claim that Cook is really one of their kind, but I like the fact that she’s country. There’s a hint of awkwardness in her expressions of attitude in the title cut and “Time are Tough in Rock ’n’ Roll” that a rock ’n’ roll singer would have ironed out by now. At the same time, she can sing about being in her mother’s dreams without a knowing wink, and the most natural-sounding moment on the album is “Down Girl,” a slow, sympathetic waltz that is really all about the joy of singing, in this case, harmonizing with Nanci Griffith and producer Rodney Crowell. The country girl flirting with rock ’n’ roll is more interesting than the other way around, and the fact that she doesn’t lose her country charms in the process makes the album a winner.