Mike Hall: Nothing Stands Still (digital outlets)

To paraphrase Milton: They also serve who only stand and play bass?

Although Johnny Rotten once glibly dismissed the bass as just a big booming noise in the background (he was talking about his friend, the unschooled Sid), we at Elsewhere don't diminish the important role of bass players.

Because from Bill Black through Paul McCartney to Jaco Pastorius, Jah Wobble, Bill Laswell, Tina Weymouth, Peter Hook and Meshell Ndegeocello, the bass player has frequently been a crucial and often defining instrumentalist.

But . . .

Some bass players don't get the credit due . . . like Mike Hall.

Hall's name probably doesn't come with immediate recognition and the deliberately nondescript cover of this debut solo album Nothing Stands Still – where he engages the camera with disconcerting passivity – probably doesn't help in the age of Tik-Tok, Instagram and LinkedIn.

But the Auckland bassist, singer, songwriter and session musician has a career going back to hardcore punks Balance (three albums from the mid 1990s).

He also thought beyond thrash noise because he played with the more preciously melodic Brunettes, appearing on their tastefully twee debut Holding Hands Feeding Ducks (2002) contributing bass, flute and harmonium.

Then he was in the very successful pop-rock guitar-driven Pluto (three albums including the big selling Pipeline Under the Ocean), played bass and flute on Dimmer's I Believe You Are a Star (2001) and launched Nightchoir (two albums) with former Pluto members Matthias Jordan (keyboards) and drummer Michael Franklin-Browne.

As if that wasn't enough, along the way Hall worked with SJD, Tami Neilson, the Bads, Tim Finn and many more.

These days he's playing classic rock albums with the Liberty Stage Come Together Band, just a modest and barely visible role, probably enjoying being adjacent to the greatness of those albums.

So Hall is seasoned, connected and can call on excellent peers (Jordan, multi-instrumentalist Jol Mulholland, drummer Alistair Deverick of the Ruby Suns, guest guitarist Brett Adams of The Bads) for this album of polished, understated pop-rock recorded over a couple of years.

Hall eases into the airy, romantic ballad Everything, the fragile lament Good Will (with tasteful harmonies) and the glistening guitars of Shortest Straw.

The album offers chiming power pop (the Dwight Twilley-like The Sun Never Came Up) and serves up the deliciously woozy Time which lets guitarist Adams off the leash.

In a better world where radio was more disposed to crafted pop then a third of the songs here – start with Stop Dragging Me Around – would be on playlists.

Reference points for Hall's songwriting would be Andrew Brough (Straitjacket Fits) in his brief solo career with Bike, certainly Neil Finn's recent dreamy pop solo albums and – for those with a memory – pop craftsmen like Jules Shear, Matthew Sweet and the late Karl Wallinger on songs like the power pop of The Sun Never Came Up and Warning Shot.

These are all touchstones which command respect and Hall comfortably sits in that elevated company.

The unhurried Nothing Stands Still hasn't drawn attention to itself with singles or Hall doing the media rounds in interviews talking about his “struggles” and such.

Bass players don't do that.

But the understated craft (Shortest Straw, Time) and adult sensibilities here deserve and earn the mature mainstream audience he's aiming at.

And he's hit it dead centre . . . without a big booming noise.

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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here