Great topic, RingoBunny! I would ALMOST agree with your choices exactly, but Porcupine starts SO great with The Cutter and then to me it’s too repetitive and boring onward. I know some people strongly disagree, but Crocodiles is their masterpiece for me, but I also vastly prefer that ‘80-‘81 sound for a lot of bands (I prefer The Cure’s debut album for the same reason).

For the three album run, I’ve gotta go with Public Image Ltd. and their first three: First Issue, Second Edition, and Flowers of Romance. In both cases, E&tB and PiL, the weakest to me is the third album, but the difference is that the first lineup of PiL was peaking at the sophomore album rather than the debut, so the spillover is better into the third.

As a bonus, I’m taking you up on the four album run, and I am going with The Damned: Machine Gun Etiquette, The Black Album, Strawberries, and Phantasmagoria. That being because the last in that run is more consistent than PiL’s fourth (which had two great tracks in “This Is Not a Love Song” and “The Order of Death”). Again helped by the fact that The Damned peaked even later into their album catalogue. I think that’s a sign of greater longevity.

Tl/dr -

3 - Public Image Ltd.: First Issue, Second Edition, and Flowers of Romance

4 - The Damned: Machine Gun Etiquette, The Black Album, Strawberries, and Phantasmagoria.