I understand where you're coming from but to me, Vader never disappointed. They went more melodic over time and all, but all their albums were consistently great (I don't count the cover album, though).
Sylvain Houde-era Kataklysm definitely rapes, but the Maurizio-era stuff is not bad by any means. It's nothing special but it's consistently great, and it's pretty much death metal with melody done right. Plus, they pretty much originated the Northern Hyperblast genre, and they haven't gone soft on that. Something tells me that I may not like their newest.
Some of these were just chosen out of pure taste, I have a bit of a soft spot for melodic tinged death metal. Arsis can go to unnessecary wankerage at times, but they have their moments of genius. UiR isn't great, just good. Perhaps it wasn't the best nomination, I suppose.
