If I am understanding you correctly, those 8 Dire Straits albums would all be grouped together under a Dire Straits menu. So, you can then select Dire Straits from the artist menu and see each of the 8 albums listed OR select play all to play them all like they were one album. It will not play Track 1 from each of the 8 albums all in a row than proceed to track 2 from each album. Nor will it play each song alphabetically, regardless of album.
If selecting play all for the artist, it will play those albums alphabetically, so if you wanted to play each by year it was released, for example, you would need a bit of a workaround. Easiest way would be to name the album something like "1997 Album Title" so that playing them alphabetically is the same as playing them chronologically. Hope that helps!