On Belmont Boulevard, Pat Martin's ever-expanding barbecue empire is in good form

Barbecue is tribalism.

It is meat, uniting us in smoke but dividing us by sauce and animal. It is an argument wrapped in preference, daring us to state our allegiance to a region, the almighty pig or a type of condiment.

Here in Barbecue No Man's Land, we have no smoked cuisine to call our own, per se. We don't have Texas' obsession with beef and simple preparation. We don't have St. Louis' ribs or Kansas City's sauce. We don't have eastern North Carolina's vinegar and whole-hog history, western North Carolina's tomato-based tradition or South Carolina's mustard-style methods. (We don't have Kentucky's love of mutton, either, and you can thank your deity of choice for that bit of good fortune.)

Our closest barbecue clarion is West Tennessee, which my own particular Nashville exceptionalism prefers to the sound of "Memphis." Dry-rub ribs are its most famous export, but the tradition of whole-hog cooking is what the best places there have appropriated. More than just the shoulder, whole-hog integrates fat on a glorious several-hundred-pound scale, melting down into the meat as the hog, splayed out on a giant smoker, cooks low and slow.

You would think that connoisseurs of $200 tasting menus would be the worst of the food elite, turning their nose up at anything not sufficiently sous vided, seasonally chosen or specially prepared. Tut, tut. That distinction is reserved for the Bar-B-Snob — possessors of what one local pitmaster calls "barba-tude" — the self-proclaimed experts who turn up their nose at any smoked meat that doesn't fit their particular worldview.

And a trip to the new Martin's Bar-B-Que Joint on Belmont Boulevard will drive them absolutely bananas.

There on the menu are all manner of styles and meats: brisket, pulled pork, turkey, quarter-chickens, half-chickens, sausage and even bologna. God have mercy on Pat Martin's soul, there is even smoked turkey served outside of November. There are all manner of barbecue heresies — and for the most part, they are delicious.

Take, for instance, the Redneck Taco ($10). One of Martin's signature dishes, it features your choice of meat with finely cut slaw and a little bit of sauce (tomato-based, but not too thick and with a bit of a kick) spread over a hefty but not too dense disc of cornbread. There is absolutely nothing traditional about it, but at the same time, it is almost perfectly Southern, a blend of comfortable flavors in a different formulation.

There are other sins. The brisket comes — gasp — with sauce. So does the sausage, and somewhere in Texas there is a warrant for Martin's arrest being prepared. But does it taste good? Absolutely. His Southern Belle sauce has a great kick to it, and the combination of slightly sweet and spicy plays very well with the slices of fatty beef. In the sausage's case, I'd say it's a must, because the way the links are prepared makes them a bit dry, and the sauce cures that.

Ribs come either sauced or with dry rub and sauce on the side. I've never cared much for the dry version, akin to what they serve in Memphis, and Martin's didn't change my mind. The wet version, though, was outstanding, with the meat almost falling off of the bone and that nice kind of messiness that reminds you why there's a whole roll of paper towels on the table. Ribs are available as either spares or baby backs and come in four-bone ($10), half-rack ($14) and full-slab ($23) options.

Martin's chicken is outstanding, either pulled or on the bone, with a solid smokiness, and the wings are even better. Standing in a long line on a Friday night, we were introduced to the wings by a server bringing around a half-sheet full of them. They are absolutely what you crave on game days, and we'll be making plans to do takeout in the fall, with plenty of Alabama white sauce to dip them in.

But the best reason to go to the new location is the pulled pork. It's state of the art, whether on a sandwich ($5.50) — "topped with slaw, the way God intended" the menu reads — or as part of a platter ($12), which comes with two sides and Texas toast. Words like "umami" get thrown around by food geeks far too often, but somewhere in that mix of fat and muscle is a pleasant and deep savory sensation. You find it only in barbecue joints that care about the kind of pig they're using as much as the low, slow technique required to tease that satisfying flavor out of it.

(Interestingly, the dish that consistently turned the most heads? The bologna, seared to a crisp on the outside and slathered with sauce on top, and with no hint of greasiness. It is, as one companion put it, "the best, flattest hot dog I've ever had." I've begun ordering an extra bologna sandwich anytime I'm with a group, slicing it up and giving it away — a kind of bologna evangelist if you will.)

As at his other locations, Martin's sides are up to snuff. You can grab beans three different ways (green, pinto or baked) or potato salad if you'd like something a little cool to go with the spice of his sauce, but I usually just load up with fries. Like the wings, they go well with the Alabama white sauce. For the non-barbecue inclined, there are fish and burger options, but come on — really?

The Belmont Boulevard joint is bigger than the Nolensville location, and it makes the experience more relaxing. The bar is bigger too, stocked with local craft beer. The walls are filled with fun kitsch that will invoke some quality nostalgia. It's an extremely comfortable space.

This is the fourth Martin's (and likely there are more on the way), so there's a temptation to wonder if Pat Martin is spreading himself too thin. Running a restaurant or four is a far cry from just making great barbecue. But the quality control seems to be good, and any problems we had were more an issue of concept (i.e. the dry sausage) than execution.

Interestingly, Martin received this query on Twitter recently: "I love the food. Someone told me a rumor that you guys went corporate. Is it true?"

Martin's reply: "NO IT IS NOT." But it's true that his partners are Fresh Hospitality, owners of Jim 'N Nick's, Taziki's and more. What Fresh has done is to partner with great chefs — Donald Link and John Currence, to name two — to create interesting restaurants with a similar ethos: make it fresh, use great products, focus on the food. Their Fatback Pig project, for example, is a model for raising heritage breed pigs humanely, and represents the kind of conscience we should hope for all "corporate" food purveyors to display. The question is not whether Martin has gone corporate, but whether he's the right kind of corporate — and all evidence on Belmont Boulevard says he is.

That will drive the Bar-B-Snobs even crazier, but screw those guys. Let the tribalists fight over barbecue purity; I'll have another bologna sandwich with my pulled pork and be just fine.

Email arts@nashvillescene.com.