The X Factor

The X Factor is the tenth album on which Iron Maiden, welcoming new vocalist Blaze Bayley, pursues a heavier, more sunken air and long song construction than before. Steve Harris’s bass and the twin guitars slowly advance a dark, heavy story while sustaining a taut tension. Even in the band’s history, it is a particularly introspective, dark record. From the solemnity of the opening epic “Sign of the Cross,” over eleven minutes, and the speed of the single “Man on the Edge” to the aggression of “Lord of the Flies” and “Fortunes of War” and “The Edge of Darkness,” every song is full of weighty shading. Blaze’s low, plain voice, unlike Bruce Dickinson’s brilliant high register, makes the songs’ dark shading all the deeper. Its distinction is pursuing a serious, heavy world head-on, cutting all flash and flair. That challenging stance, which did not flee to easy brightness, deserves recognition. Amid the major change of a vocalist swap, painting the start of a new era in a face by no means easy, it is an ambitious, weighty record.