Suffering from a lack of powerful riffs and tightly written songs,
The X Factor is a lackluster latter-day album from
Iron Maiden. Although the band doesn't sound particularly bad on the record, they don't sound inspired and there's a noticeable lack of energy to the performances which makes the lack of imagination all the more apparent. There's a few cuts that almost deliver the goods, but it's not enough to raise
The X Factor above the merely adequate. [On all of
Iron Maiden's 1998 reissues on Raw Power a multimedia section is featured on the CD, which includes videos, band biographies, tour date history, and photo galleries.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine