Artist: Iron Maiden
Release: The X Factor
Genre: Heavy Metal
Released: 1995
On Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/X-Factor-Iron-Maiden/dp/B000063DGJ/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1240842499&sr=8-1Reviewed by: Nicolas Xander
Iron Maiden‘s tenth album was created under difficult circumstances. Bandleader Steve Harris went through a rough time in his life, Bruce Dickinson has left the band two years earlier, and it was not sure how the fanbase would welcome new vocalist Blaze Bayley (formerly singer of „Wolfsbane“).
More than a decade later, we know that the Blaze-era albums are generally regarded as very weak, and much of this „negative credit“ goes to the singer. But regarding The X Factor, which gets a nice share of this criticism, it really is not justified.
This album mostly deals with topics Iron Maiden are known for: War, religion and history. However, the band also takes a step on previously unknown ground, writing about conflicts in the human mind that extend themselves to the point of self-abandonment. The music is incredibly fitting for these rather dark subjects: It‘s darker than Iron Maiden has ever been, and Blaze Bayley‘s voice surely helps strengthening this uniquely brooding atmosphere.
„Sign Of The Cross“ opens this album with an 11-minute long journey that could be easily described as „epic“. This track‘s style is classic Iron Maiden and overall, it is without a doubt one of the best songs on the album.
„Lord Of The Flies“ and „Man On The Edge“ were released as singles and are two rather fast-paced rockers. Also, they can be seen as some kind of transition between the typical Iron Maiden style and the general mood of The X Factor which is definitely represented by „Fortunes Of War“, a rather slow, but still very heavy song about a soldier‘s life and problems after war (similar to „The Aftermath“ on the same album and Dream Theater‘s „War Inside My Head“) that might suffer a bit from Steve Harris‘s affection to massively extend the songs he writes, but it is still a great effort that should not be overlooked.
„Look For The Truth“, „The Aftermath“ and „Judgement Of Heaven“ cannot compete with the preceding and succeeding songs. While „Look For The Truth“ comes closest to them, both of the other songs are rather weak and can be classified as filler material.
„Blood On The World‘s Hands“, however, is a strong return, mostly due to a killer bass lead at the beginning. The next song, „The Edge Of Darkness“, has recently overtaken „Sign Of The Cross“ as my favourite song on the album. Possibly the darkest song on the album, it deals with a soldier‘s situation in the War of Vietnam and is based on films like „Platoon“ and „Apocalypse Now“. The only possible flaw one might consider is the slight inconsistency of the lyrics.
„2 AM“ is a song that often gets overlooked. Not justified, because it is a great song that fits the album‘s mood very well. The X Factor could have ended after this song, because „The Unbeliever“, the final song, does not work well as a closer and it is a rather weak song compared to the rest of the album.
The production is somehow two-edged. One one hand, it is perhaps the last great sounding Iron Maiden album in terms of loudness and clarity, on the other hand, the guitars really don‘t sound like guitars. In fact, the sound is rather similar to orchestral strings on overdrive. Also, the snare drum is too quiet and lacks a bit of punch. Still, the enjoyable level of loudness that does not grate your ears after twenty minutes is a great plus and easily evens out the questionable aspects of the production.
The X Factor is probably the epitome of an underrated album. Many Iron Maiden listeners avoid it because of the lack of Bruce Dickinson, but Blaze Bayley gets too much undeserved criticism for actually doing a great job on this album. I have only a few complaints: Three songs that can‘t really keep up with the high quality of the rest, and the production that makes some instruments sound somewhat strange. But the greatness of most of the songs and the amazing dark and brooding atmosphere outmatch the flaws very easily.
tri.ad‘s Rating: 8.5-9/10