I'm interested in hearing the Archives' thoughts on some of the best 3-album runs in metal history.

Allow me to open proceedings with the nomination of Blind Guardian - Tales from the Twilight World/Somewhere Far Beyond/Imaginations from the Other Side.

These 3 albums saw Blind Guardian at the absolute peak of their powers. While the first two albums were undeniably great slabs of speed metal, they nevertheless contained moments of tedium that inspired you to worship at the altar of the man who invented the CD player. However, the masterful songwriting of the Tales...Beyond...Imaginations era resulted in albums full of density and ambition, whilst at the same time never crossing the rubicon of pompous wank that has plagued much of their post-Night at the Opera material. Moreover, Hansi's voice still soared like an eagle and Andre was still making his instrument sing like no guitarist I've ever heard. This was a revolutionary band producing the best music of their career, and few if any metal bands would ever match such brilliance.


Looking forward to the recs.

Darkthrone, of course - A Blaze... to Transilvanian Hunger is about as essential a 3 album run as is possible, for their vast influence (pretty sure the latter spawned ten thousand copycats) and incredible consistency. Perhaps more of an unholy trinity, but hey.

Candlemass' 3 albums with Messiah from the 1980s is another one - the *best* old doom metal, for sure, in no small part thanks to Messiah's amazing voice.

Type O Negative, with Bloody Kisses through World Coming Down. The former established gothic metal as a concept (and to this day remains unmatched), I'm 99% sure no metal sounds like October Rust and World Coming Down... don't even get me started.

Eyehategod, from Take As Needed For Pain to Confederacy of Ruined Lives. Not to dismiss their debut, but on the 3 albums that followed they pulled off the style they helped invent on that album so much better. Textbook sludge metal, about as hateful as metal gets.

Suffocation's 3 albums from their original run. Many bands have tried to copy them, none have succeeded. Hands down one of the best death metal bands. Oh, and not to exclude the two EPs that bookend these albums, but you know.

I'm sure I'm missing some obvious ones, *shrug*.

Reverend Bizarre with In the Rectory / Crush the Insects / So Long Suckers. And yeah, even I notice all the flaws in the latter two albums I'm a total fanboy so this is the only real option for me.

I need to revisit early Suffocation. My introduction to the band was Breeding the Spawn and I just couldn't get past the Passchendaele-esque production. As a result, they are one of the few seminal death metal bands that I'm not overly familiar with.

i'm gonna go for the super obvious and say black sabbath / paranoid / master of reality - tho' there's really no need to stop at 3 here...

also a shout out to the first three amorphis albums, even tho' the debut isn't quite up to par with the brilliance of tales and elegy


pierced is easily my fav album from them, and doesn't suffer from bad production like the first two. try giving that one a spin

the despise the sun ep that followed it is also some of their best work, if you'd prefer a smaller dose

Honestly, the production on Breeding never bothered me, and this is coming from someone who got into the band via Pierced From Within. Definitely check that album out, it has some of the greatest production for a DM album of the time.

EDIT: joppek beat me to it

Uh, Sepultura with Schizophrenia to Arise. Classic, amazing thrash, obviously some of the best in the genre.

Children of Bodom - Hatebreeder, Follow the Reaper, Hate Crew Deathroll
This might just be my favourite run. Superb songwriting with some amazing lead work and melodies.

Edguy - Mandrake, Hellfire Club, Rocket Ride
This is when Tobi really started to mature and grow as a writer, as well as a vocalist. Remarkably consistent run that continued after these three albums.

Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind, Powerslave
Although they feature some all time metal classics, some say there's filler on each record. I disagree, and think they're all incredible front to back. This is also slap bang in the middle of the greatest run in metal history (first seven Maiden albums).

Iron Maiden - Brave New World, Dance of Death, A Matter of Life and Death
Bruce and Adrian returning really reinvigorated the band after their relatively average '90s output, and these three records are a testament to that.

Kreator - Terrible Certainty, Extreme Aggression, Coma of Souls
Over their first five records, it's nice to track how they gradually progressed from their sloppier, rawer thrash of the mid '80s to a leaner, more melodic style. Terrible Certainty is like the bridge between the two, and it culminates with the greatest album of the genre, Coma of Souls.

To me Azagthoth/Tucker is the Lennon/McCartney of metal, and i know I’m the only mother fucker that really really loves Heretic, but i have to be brutally honest, the F-H albums are, for me, three of the best albums ever recorded. so I have to mention those.

Sepultura-Schizophrenia-Beneath the Remains-Arise. 3 Thrashterpieces in a row, although Arise is the weakest of the three.

Slyer-Hell Awaits-Reign in Blood-South of Heaven. I love the cavernous and dark tone of Hell Awaits, the unrelenting savagery of Regin and the more restrained but still perfect SOH. If you could make this four, I'd add Show no Mercy in there.

Morbid Angel's first 3 albums belong in this discussion.

Oh shit, Judas Priest's S trilogy. Naysayers on production and performances be damned.

A few that came to mind:

Deicide - Deicide / Legion / Once Upon the Cross
Morbid Angel - Altars / Blessed / Covenant
Mercyful Fate - Nuns Have No Fun EP / Melissa / Don't Break the Oath (also In the Shadows, but there's a considerable amount of time between those two periods so it may not count)
King Diamond - Abigail / "Them" / Conspiracy
Rotting Christ - Thy Mighty Contract / Non Serviam / Triarchy of the Lost Lovers
Fleshcrawl - Descend into the Absurd / Impurity / Bloodsoul
Brutality - Screams of Anguish / When the Sky Turns Black / In Mourning

I am going to add to the ones mentioned this:
Stratovarius - Episode / Visions / Destiny.

(One of the) Holy Trinity of Power Metal, and the peek of their career.

Kamelot - Karma, Epica and The Black Halo.
My own three favorite power metal albums of all time.

Cradle of Filth - Dusk and Her Embrace, Cruelty and the Beast, Midian.
I don't care what anyone says, these three albums are brilliant. Great lyrics, great atmosphere across them all.

Theatre of Tragedy - s/t, Velvet Darkness They Fear, Aegis.
Brilliant gothic doom metal.

Tristania - Widow's Weeds, Beyond the Veil, World of Glass.
Same here, honestly.

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses, October Rust, World Coming Down.
I just really like goth metal, I guess. In any case, there isn't a single bad song across these three albums imo.

Sonata Arctica - Ecliptica, Silence, Winterheart's Guild.
Great wintertime albums for sure.

The Gathering - Mandylion, Nighttime Birds, How to Measure a Planet?
From brilliant gothic/doom to brilliant atmospheric prog rock on that last one.

Manilla Road - Crystal Logic, Open the Gates, The Deluge.
Delightfully strange, mysterious music - Shelton will absolutely be missed.

100% agree. An incredible trio of albums.

Deathspell Omega's "Si Monvmentvm Reqvires", "Fas" and "Paracletus"
Even though Si Monvmentvm was still in the experimental stages of their sound with some hangovers from their early albums, Fas is still the darkest, most "complete" BM album I've ever heard and Paracletus is some of the most twisted and emotionally complicated.

Colosseum's "Delirium", "Numquam", "Parasomnia"
Tragic symphonic funeral doom which stands head and shoulders above other FDM bands with its excellent composition. RIP Juhani.

Death from Human through Individual Thought Patterns & Symbolic, and Lightning, Puppets & Justice from Metallica are the greatest musical trilogies that first come to mind for me here, but when it comes to Max-era Sepultura, I'd rather skip the well-written but extremely rawly-produced Schizophrenia, and say that the best 3 records from that era of the band are Beneath, Arise, & Chaos, A.D., the last of which is my personal favorite from the band, and quite possibly the only example of a vintage, old-school Thrash act starting to get even better after they started slowing things down, IMO.

The problem with some of the obvious classics (Sabbath, etc.) is their runs don't just stop at 3. Sabbath's run was 6 albums. Maiden was 7. God only knows what Running Wild's is.

Carcass- Sypmhonies/Necroticism/Heartwork

Motorhead- Bastards/Sacrifice/Overnight Sensation

Helloween actually did this twice. Walls/Keeper 1/Keeper 2 and Time of the Oath/Better Than Raw/The Dark Ride.

Beyond Twilight's only three albums - these guys sort of played around with various prog stylings and trappings and different singers, but they had a unified sound by Finn Zierler's masterful keys and weird writing style. Dark, eerie, uncompromising - this was prog metal for people who had a bit of a twisted side to them.

Tad Morose - Undead/Matters of the Dark/Modus Vivendi - They really came into their own style and with urban breed's unmistakable vocals and cool lyrics, they became a great sort of alternative power metal act for people who didn't like the usual melodic Euro-stuff. Heavy, monolithic riffs that invoked being in a tomb and breed's ultra-charismatic vocals made these a treat.

Seconding the prior mentions of Blind Guardian (Tales - Imaginations), Kamelot (Karma - Black Halo), Judas Priest (S Trilogy), and Type O Negative (Bloody Kisses - World Coming Down).

But because someone has to say it, I'm putting down Nightwish's run of Oceanborn, Wishmaster, and Century Child. Absolutely unbeatable symphonic power metal, and still the crowning champion albums of the subgenre to this very day. It's too bad Once was plagued with some terrible filler, or else we'd have a streak of four on our hands here.

(1995) Ulver - Bergtatt - Et Eeventyr i 5 Capitler, (1996) Ulver - Kveldssanger and (1997) Ulver - Nattens Madrigal.

motörhead's run was 23 albums

also, i think you mean reek/sypmhonies/necroticism with carcass

This is a very intriguing thread concept that I am oddly very into participating in.

I am actually going to go with more of a general consensus mind in approaching my reply, in that I don't think my championing a maligned album (which I do from time to time) to force a three album stretch is appropriate for this topic.

That said, I can think of *way* more non-metal examples than metal examples, so I am going to list both.

For metal, I have two examples; one is very obvious and one is more recent:

Gorgoroth: Pentagram to Antichrist to Under The Sign Of Hell.

Simply put, along with the Darkthrone trilogy (already mentioned) this is 90's second wave black metal defined. Not much more to say, really.

Panopticon: Kentucky to Roads To The North to Autumn Eternal.

With Kentucky, Lunn goes as far as the bluegrass/post-BM hybrid can go, so with RTTN, the bluegrass is scaled back for further exploration into the more "post-y" BM side while dabbling with melodic DM and Norwegian BM elements. On Autumn Eternal, that more "post-y" BM atmosphere sees some of Kentucky's folky element re-introduced.

For non-metal:

Jimmy Eat World: Clarity to Bleed American to Futures.

Clarity introduces a whole slew of new elements (keys, mallet percussion, drum loops), BA strips that away and gets down to the nitty-gritty of masterful songcraft, and Futures melds the two approaches together.

King Crimson: Discipline to Beat to Three Of A Perfect Pair.

Discipline completely overhauls the Crim's sound and lineup introducing elements of gamelan and new wave, Beat takes these new influences a slight step further while also refining the song structuring in more conventional ways, and TOAPP goes a step further by re-introducing the improv element from 70's Crim.

R.E.M.: Green to Out Of Time to Automatic For The People.

Having freshly signed to a major label while retaining full creative control (a rarity), R.E.M. took their first bona fide experimental steps on Green, on Out Of Time that is pushed forward with the addition of strings and unconventionally structured songs, and on Automatic they have fully shed their 80s sound and came out the other end with their darkest, arguably most experimental record.

Porcupine Tree: In Abestntia to Deadwing to Fear Of Blank Planet.

The addition of Gavin Harrison on drums and the ramping up of metal-ish influences saw this three album stretch as something of a high plateau-these albums are all amazing, but they don't really track an evolution as the other examples do.

Fun topic. I could sit here and keep listing off examples.

For me there are a couple that stand out other than some of the ones listed so far.

Voivod's run of Killing Technology --> Dimension Hatross --> Nothingface was spectacular. I wore those cassettes out in high school, and still listen to them regularly 30 years on.

The other is Fates Warning, the John Arch albums Night On Brocken --> The Spectre Within --> Awaken The Guardian. I know some aren't enamored with NoB, but I always loved that album, especially Soldier Boy, Damnation and the title track. The second two of that trilogy are absolute classics.

Paradise Lost----> Shades of God - Icon - Draconian Times
My Dying Bride----> Turn Loose The Swans - The Angel And The Dark River - Like Gods Of The Sun
Moonspell-----> Under The Moonspell (EP) - Wolfheart - Irreligious

Dark Angel - Darkness Descends, Leave Scars and Time Does Not Heal. The riffs, the songs! Hell yeah!

No I don't because Reek is just ok.

Also some of those Motorhead albums weren't very good. Bomber, Motorizer and Snake Bite Love come to mind.

+3 to whoever mentioned Gorgoroth

I love latter day Immortal, but as far as runs go, I can't deny Diabolical/Pure Holocaust/Battles In The North

Bomber! You take that back right now!

Metallica** - Kill 'Em All to Master of Puppets*
Iron Maiden - NotB though PS. Genre defining and influencing.
Megadeth - Peace Sells through Rust. A epitome IMO of 80's thrash guitar.
Kamelot - As listed, Karma though TBH, though I can say its more like 5 adding on the two records on either side.
Conception - Parallels though Flow. I know many look down a bit on Flow but to me its the pinnacle of their songwriting.

On the archives but not really metal
Rush - Hemispheres though Moving Pictures. From the pinnacle of their full on prog era to the pinnacle of their compact hard rock progressive writing era. Of course I would probably say 2112 through P/G. I better stop thinking of them or I will go back into a 6 month Rush phase...

*apparently a 0% album to some here...smh.
**I'd go five though, KEA though M.

Agreed this is a fun topic, but I respectfully disagree with your Panopticon order. I think from self-titled to Social Disservices is MUCH stronger. Everything from Kentucky on is too folk-y and self-indulgent in my opinion. It's like he was writing black metal because he had to but he really just wanted to write folk/bluegrass/Americana songs so the metal sections exist to get to the folk parts versus standing on their own. His early works balance and flow much better in my opinion. And while he does scale it back on RTTN, I think it's ultimately boring. Basically, all three of those albums in my opinion are basically the same thing whereas the self-titled, Collapse, and Social Disservices are holistically distinct yet play well off of one another.

Motorizer fucking owns.

Celtic Frost - Morbid/To Mega/Pandemonium
Danzig - Danzig/Lucifuge/How The God's Kill

Danzig - S/t - How the Gods kill

Bathory - Blood Fire Death - Twilight of the Gods

Rush - 2112 - Hemispheres

Helloween - Walls of Jericho - Keeper of the seven keys pt2

Dokken - Tooth and Nail - Back for the Attack

Opeth - My Arms, Your Hearse -> Still Life -> Blackwater Park

I gathered the OP meant consecutive works, but I'll help you out here:

The first holy trinity by Bathory consist of albums 1-3, the second of albums 4-6.

Right or right?

Lots here, so I'll name a few:

In Flames - The Jester Race, Whoracle, Colony
Arch Enemy - Black Earth, Stigmata, Burning Bridges
Metallica - Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, And Justice for All
Nevermore - Politics of Ecstacy - This Godless Endeavor (5 album run unsurpassed in the history of music)
Arcturus - LMI, TSM, SS
Sulphur Aeon - Swallowed by the Ocean's Tide, Gateways to the Antisphere, The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos

Loads more, but I just woke up and those immediately sprang to mind.

Agree to disagree.

I was actually originally going to do RTTN, AE, and Scars Of Man, but like I said, me defending a (somewhat) maligned album (in this case the second part of Scars Of Man) feels like it would be against the spirit of the thread, and the general consensus is that Kentucky is considered a masterpiece-so I used that as my starting point and felt it still works.

I actually view RTTN, AE, and the first part of Scars Of Man (the purely post-BM part; this album is very "snowy"-that's the best way I can describe it) as the very best Panopticon albums, with Autumn Eternal as the pinnacle. But that's me.

As for the early works, I personally find the S/T first album to be totally underdeveloped and Social Disservices to be decent, but a little meandering. Collapse, though, is outstanding, I'll give you that.

But hey, like I said, respectfully agree to disagree. it's all good.

In Flames, excellent mention. These three albums are fucking excellent.

As for Nevermore, I appreciate you giving Enemies Of Reality its due. This album seems to get no credit because of the production "controversy", but put that bullshit aside and just focus on the songs, and this album is lean, vicious, well written, and masterfully performed. And while I've never personally been terribly hot on Godless myself, I acknowledge the general consensus considers this a top album-so yeah, you have an easy 5 album run or two three albums runs starting with either Politics or Dreaming Neon Black. That's how top tier this discography is.

Symphony X, with 'The Divine Wings of Tragedy', 'Twilight in Olympus', and 'V - The New Mythology Suite'. Superb albums. Now that they're active again, I hope they'll release an album as good as these, but I don't expect it.

Katatonia, with 'Discouraged Ones', 'Tonight's Decision', and 'Last Fair Deal Gone Down'. If I can be allowed a fourth, I'll add 'Viva Emptiness' to this list. Katatonia's middle period was fantastic.

Black Sabbath - those first six albums defined metal, pushed the boundaries and pioneered nearly everything

Metallica - can't deny the first five albums, although I tend to go from RTL - Black album

First seven Maiden records is a contender but Killers is average and POM tails off on side 2. Powerslave to 7th Son would qualify though

Cathedral's first 3 albums definitely qualify, and if you include their EPs then everything up to 1996 was brilliant

For the "Big" bands, this could be debated ad nauseam but I think Metallica never topped their first three albums. "And Justice For All" was good but flawed in a lot of ways- weak/tinny guitar sound, over-long songs, too many songs constructed of meandering mid-paced riffs, etc. As for Iron Maiden, I think "Killers" through "Peace of Mind" was their best era as far as overall consistency, though I would take ANY of their first six. "Seventh Son" was okay, but to me, it tended to get boring at times. As for Sabbath, yeah where do you start? All six of their first six albums are awesome. Hard to choose whether "Vol.1" through Master of Reality, or Vol.4 through Sabotage, or any combination in between, are better than the others.

Megadeth is a tough one for me because they had two undeniably timelessly great albums- "Peace Sells" and "Rust in Peace" with a good, but not nearly AS good one sandwhiched in between.