Since their eponymous debut was released in March 1980, bassist/founding member Steve Harris has taken the band and their highly original music all over the world, littering the path with such cornerstones of the genre as The Number of the Beast (1982), Piece of Mind (1983), the quintessential double live opus Live After Death (1985), Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (1988) and the back-to-the-roots ferocity of No Prayer For the Dying (1990).

There have been occasional line-up changes along the way, but the unity of the group has never been called into question. The band acknowledges that a singer is always the hardest position in a band to replace, but they are totally confident that they have made the right choice in recruiting Bayley, who was painstakingly picked from over 1,000 applicants to replace long-standing singer Bruce Dickinson, who left Maiden for a solo career in 1993. Bayley has wasted no time whatsoever in integrating himself into the ranks and co-wrote some of the new material with Harris and guitarist Janick Gers. And his vocals are quite magnificently now part of Maiden, giving a new rich texture to the music.

"With us having no singer since Bruce left, morale has been up and down a bit over recent years, but Blaze has given us a real kick in the behind," says Harris. "I've always thought a singer shouldn't just be the mouthpiece on stage, he should be the band's frontman on and off stage, giving it everything between the songs and in real life. All or nothing. A real animal. And Blaze is. He's just what we wanted. After nine studio and four live albums, we knew that we had to do something special with the new album. It had to capture the vitality and new life that we felt with Blaze now in the band.

"It took us over a year to record, which is an unbelievably long time for this band. But there are more songs, and a few longer songs than usual, so that might explain how long it all took. We've definitely been putting the hours in each day!"

Even allowing for the advent of the CD age, Iron Maiden found it impossible to include all the new songs they wrote on The X Factor. Some 14 tunes were written and mixed -- plus two covers for B-sides -- but space only allowed for 11 to be featured on the album, which nevertheless has a running time of over 70 minutes. The longest song at over 11 minutes, "The Sign of the Cross" is destined to become a Maiden classic. What sounds like the Choirs of Hades usher it in gently, and an unsettling quiet intro soon gives way to a complex, multi-tempoed monster of a song.

But The X Factor is not all War and Peace-length epics. The album's shortest song, "2 a.m.," is another breathtaking highlight, a slowburning tale of 9-to-5 bedsit drudgery. "Blood on the World's Hands" is another relevant lyric, as is "Fortunes of War." The stomping first single, "Man on the Edge," looks at current ecological and social congestion at a frantic post-punk pace.

There are definitely one or two differences production-wise on The X Factor. The band co-produced the album with Nigel Green (Def Leppard, AC/DC) instead of Martin Birch, who has worked closely with the band since 1981's second album, Killers.

"Martin is all but retired, but working with Nigel wasn't a completely new experience for us because he'd been the assistant engineer on the Killers and Number of the Beast albums," Steve explains. "Since those early albums of ours he's gone on to do so many different types of music. That was what attracted us to him. But the new album definitely has a bigger, heavier sound than what we've had before.

"Perhaps we have been lacking sound-wise over the last couple of albums. This time we paid more attention than ever to getting the drums heavier and then getting some parts where there would have been a flurry of notes in the past. We just tried to make sure the arrangements breathed a bit more."

For proof of this fine-tuning approach, witness "Lord of the Flies," a particularly hard-hitting tune that offers several slightly different
sound textures and some angular riffing. "Look for the Truth," one of Harris' favorites, mixes slide guitars, a huge chorus and those typical ear-drilling rhythms.

In short, The X Factor is something of a new start for Maiden. They've taken on board a brand new member and some progressive production ideas, and delivered their freshest, most vibrant album of the last decade.

The quintet, who smashed down established barriers in the mid-'80s by taking their music behind the Iron Curtain, had another unlikely visit planned ... this time to Beirut where their show was to be the first ever heavy rock concert in Lebanon. Unfortunately, Maiden was refused entrance into the country for unspecified reasons.

"It's always a fantastic experience playing to audiences who haven't seen or heard live metal before," Harris says.

"The X Factor" weighs in at 11 tracks, 73 minutes long, marks the debut of new lead vocalist Blaze Bayley and is produced by Steve Harris and Nigel Green. It is the first time bassist Steve Harris has been at the controls of a studio album.

Says Harris, "The title of the album, 'The X Factor' came about in the early part of the recording. We all felt that the way things were progressing - the songs, Blaze's new involvement, the sound, the commitment - the new album really would have that extra quality, that bit of magic...that X Factor. This became the working title for the album and we liked it. So we kept it. It's also very apt as this is our tenth studio album and 'X' can bring up many images." Once we'd played together for a few weeks to really integrate Blaze into Maiden, we got down to serious song selection and writing around April last year, expecting to release an album earlier this year. It
took a bit longer than expected. An unbelievably long time for this band, in fact largely due to the amount of songs we worked on. We recorded enough material for two albums. From this we've selected what we think are the best eleven songs - we can only fit eleven on
a CD!"

Harris continues, "We also paid more attention this time to the sound, an area where we felt we may have been a little bit lacking on the last couple of albums. In particular we concentrated on getting the drums heavier and getting some space where there would have been a flurry of notes before. We just tried to make sure the arrangements breathed a bit more."

"I took over production with Nigel Green because our long time friend and producer, Martin Birch is all but retired. We know Nigel well as he was Martin's assistant engineer on "Killers" and "Number Of The Beast." Since that time he's gone on to do so many different types of music - from AC/DC and Def Leppard to Billy Ocean, and that depth of experience we found very attractive. "The X Factor" definitely has a bigger and heavier sound than anything Maiden have done before."

(from the X Factor press release)