ALBUMS OF THE WEEK

Power Of Dreams Auslander

State 51 Conspiracy, out July 23 ★★★★★

DUBLIN band Power Of Dreams return with Auslander, 25 years since their last album Become Yourself. The band’s singer and songwriter Craig Walker has spent time living in Paris and London and currently resides in Berlin. As a result, there is a strong sense of time spent in those cities. (Auslander means foreigner in German). He sings of taking black cabs and looking at billboards in Muswell Hill on the hook-laden Do It. ‘Teutonic voyages knock me from my sleep’ reflects his time in the German capital. Early Nineties contemporaries James seems to be a musical reference point on certain songs. Elsewhere tracks such as Margaret and Best Days are like Empire Of The Sun at their breeziest. His home thoughts from abroad seep into Across The Shannon where he concludes ‘I’ve become a better man instead of singing songs about it.’ Walker is still living his dreams. Danny McElhinney

John Mayer Sob Rock Columbia, out July 16 ★★★★★

John Mayer has said he was inspired to pick up the electric guitar after seeing Marty McFly’s rifftastic moves in one of the most popular films of 1985. There is also a Back To The Future feel about his new album. Rocking an Eighties-era mullet on the album’s artwork, the 43-year old’s mining of the era is a conscious one. Last Train Home could come from a

Glenn Frey album. Wild Blue is like Tango In The Night-era Fleetwood Mac complete with Lindsey Buckingham type guitar solo. A Shot In The Dark sounds like James Taylor’s eighties output. Till The Right One Comes though seems as content to wait on inspiration as its title suggests and bears a resemblance to Van Morrison’s Days Like These. The Fratellis interrogated the Seventies with wit and verve on their album earlier this year, Mayer’s Eighties exposition only occasionally rises above a pleasant listen. Danny McElhinney