by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

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.